Roadtrip thoughts: From Paris through Germany and Italy, back to Provence.

If what you want to do is mostly drive and change hotels every night and not really get to spend much time seeing/exploring the area, I say go for it. I love road trips and have done trips like that here in the US to get a taste of a new state or two that I know I can go back to easily to see more if I feel the need. But in Europe, where I want to see what's there to see, and savor the experience, I personally would not spend that much time on the road. I much prefer staying in one place for 2 to 3 days (or even longer) and take short day trip drives to other locales that aren't too far away. I hate packing up and moving every day, especially with 4 people to get moving each morning. This is just my personal opinion but I also think it generally takes more time to drive some routes in Europe than we expect it will. This is what I experienced driving around France - speed limits are generally lower and more strictly enforced, traffic during peak tourist season can be heavy and slow, especially in the more scenic areas.

Hi,
A week-long road trip along your rough route is too ambitious. In 2 weeks, then yes, maybe.
Here's another idea, if you want some roadtrip elements:
- Train Paris-Stuttgart, rent car, 4 night road trip along Romantic road (including Rothenburg odt, Neuschwanstein castle).
- Drop car in Munich, fly to Turin, rent car, 3 nights road trip in the wine regions near Asti and Alba (Langhe)
- Drop car in Sanremo, take train to wherever in Provence / Côte d'Azur (the Riviera around Nice could be ideal)
I still find it busy, but it gives you the opportunity to visit Rothenburg and similar places, and to get a taste of small-town Italy in a relatively preserved region from where onwards travel to Provence is convenient.

To save backtracking to Paris: could you book a flight into Paris and out of Nice? or Marseille, if you want to go further west in Provence?

JoAnne, barring an open jaw flight as previously suggested, you may need to rethink your itinerary. Here are my suggestions/tips:
1) Start with routing your trip at ViaMichelin.com. This website is very helpful with driving distance and travel times. You may also get an idea of toll & fuel costs through another feature on that site.
2) Have you driven in Europe before? If not, search for road sign explanations and rules of the road for the countries that you plan to visit.
3) Search for information on Green or Eco zones in any large city that you plan to visit. You can not drive a car in any Green zone unless you have a special permit. You should be able to find a map online showing the zones of Milan for example.
4) While we tend to rely on our smart phones, a good paper map is a great back up. You do not want to be taken down a 2 track that your GPS says is a road.
5) If you can, get a credit card with a chip & PIN. Not our chip with a PIN we use to verify a debit card purchase. You may find it difficult to find a gas station with a real person in Italy on a Sunday or from 12-3 in the afternoon. Having the chip & pin card should allow you to buy fuel a fuel station.
6) When renting a vehicle make sure that you take pictures of ANY dents, dings, scratches, and under the front & rear bumper. Also do a pre-trip walk around the vehicle with the lights and hazard flashers on. Also be sure to check that the windshield wipers work.
That is all that I can think of for now. As one who has driven on 6 out of 8 trips to Europe I would say that I prefer to drive than ride. Having a vehicle will give you the flexibility of taking as long or as little time as you want in a place. You can switch directions on a whim. You can stop at that store, restaurant, or roadside point of interest that you see.
Do not be fooled by the size or the distance. What may seem like a nice little jaunt may actually be much further than you care to drive. Taking a quick look at ViaMichelin & Google maps for Paris to Rothenburg, for example, shows a 6 hour & 40 minute trip with LOTS of construction currently. As this example shows, it is a day eaten up by just driving. My wife & I like to take the secondaries a lot of the time just so that we can see the towns and stop at a local restaurant along the way. You will find interesting places as you do. A restaurant outside of Bologna, for example, that had Route 66 pictures and a Ford F150 parked out front because the owner wanted to show what they saw on their road trip to the USA. Or a restaurant in Tuscany where the owners family was visiting so they were visiting with their children & grandchildren along with waiting on us.
You can do a loop in & out of Paris (which we are doing in September) as we have done from Frankfurt ( a number of times) or London.
I hope this helps. It sounds like a great trip.

You don't have enough time to make much of a trip from Paris to Germany and Italy and then back to Provence.

I suggest that you spend more time in France, enjoy Strasbourg, then down to Burgundy and Provence. Another choice is to go into Germany, Strasbourg, then Freiberg, Triberg (Black Forrest) then up to Heidelberg, over to Rothenberg and Romantic Road, perhaps include Wurzburg, then back to Paris. That is pretty ambitious in itself.

If driving by/through the scenery is what you want to do, fine. Seems like you will be driving from one hotel to the next, for that part of the trip.

Fuel will run somewhere near $10 Canadian per gallon, plus tolls and parking.

Others may be able to provide more relevant comments, if you were to identify the route you contemplate that is 'under 2000 km'

Thanks for the feedback folks. We are re-thinking Italy as it's never been that high on our must do list--just looked like it might be an opportunity.I

Does anyone have experience with one-way car rentals? It might make sense to put a train or short flight in, though with a party of 4 the car usually makes the most economic sense.

DH lived in the Black Forest for a year, and we actually got engaged there--my first trip abroad, many years ago now. So we want to show the kids things like the castle ruins in Heidelberg, the tower in Bad Wimphen, and the town wall in Dinkelsbuhl. And we know what we're looking forward to in Provence as well--but in between, and other parts of France, we're still looking for what's going to be compelling for us.

We have road tripped extensively in both the UK and Ireland, and in NA of course. Driving is not just time wasted for us. If it's the same 4-hour trip we make several times a year to see relatives, sure, that's not an interesting trip. Driving through a part of the world that we haven't experienced (much) is different entirely. The kids, then 16 and 13, actually got on really well, and enjoyed our road tripping in England just because it was...England. You know, Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Horrible Histories different snacks and soda, and pounds sterling. :) We also do a lot of audiobooks in the car, which we all look forward to. BUT I don't like a lot of "one night stands" in hotels, and was thinking we could do, say, 2 nights in Rothenburg (to be there in the evening post-daytrippers) and fan out from there on the day in between.

Will start getting serious about the calculations. The Via Michelin site looks great for planning, and we'll definitely pick up some paper maps. Nothing like them for getting the lay of the land--or having a clue when the GPS isn't working.

Does anyone have experience with one-way car rentals?

I've done one way car rentals within one country (France) but have never done it between countries. I know that the drop off charge for returning a car in a different country is pretty high - can even be upwards of €500, which is why I've never done it. Within one country there may or may not be a drop off charge, mine was about $50 US and that was through Hertz; it depends on rental car company and possibly on the pick-up, drop-off locations.

Thanks Nancy. Kind of what I thought on inter-country. The intra-country wasn't bad though.

x-border car rentals will be expensive and will have additional issues, e.g. that cars rented in France do not have the relevant sticker to enter emission zones in some German cities, e.g. Heidelberg.

Also be aware of different regulations on driving permissions (beyond driving license only), e.g. validity of foreign driving licences in Germany.

Your kids are old enough, no regulation on special car seats.

For kids consider Europa Park.

ViaMichelin is very accurate about toll prices and fairly accurate about fuel costs (which this year have risen a lot in France). The timings are based on no stops, no construction, driving close to the national speed limits. So it is always worth adding at least 30 percent to the expected times. On weekends in the summer, maybe closer to 50 percent.

The traffic in France is fairly predictably difficult around "le Grand Depart" when much of the country goes at the same time. The government has created a Crazy Buffalo - no really - to assist with finding alternate routes on busy days (the crazy buffalo is a French play on words describing the alternate routes) with an app and a webpage containing a calendar each year predicting traffic flows and also reporting on current weather. Unlike most countries, France has two sets of speed limits, for dry and wet weather. The Bison Futé webpage is at https://www.bison-fute.gouv.fr/index,langen.html Today for example, the whole eastern portion of the country is amber, whereas the rest is green. The two maps are for going and coming back. Note the snazzy Indian headress on our Bison Futé.

I think this is doable, even possibly with a dip into Italy. Europeans road-trip all the time. Here's how I'd work it:

Train from Paris to Strasbourg, saves a couple hours driving relatively boring terrain. Spend a couple days tooling around Alsace which is great by car. Visit Haut Koeningsburg castle and maybe the "monkey mountain" if your kids are into that, great wineries and charming villages to visit.

Cross into the Black Forest, drive to Rothenburg, head south via Garmisch to Innsbruck, then you can drive through the Italian Alps to Lake Como or take a detour to Venice before continuing on to the French Alps and south to Provence. At the end drive to Paris and drop off the car, thus avoiding costly out-of-country dropoff fees. Or you could even drive the car to Strasbourg, it's a little closer, and potentially save some money.

You could also omit Italy, which would give you more time of course, but only 7 hours by Google's estimate (so like 8-9 hours in real time) and the fastest way is no longer a loop. I say leave Italy in, it will give you some fabulous alpine and seaside scenery and another culture. I've heard that driving in Northern Italy is quite normal unlike Southern Italy although I've only experienced the latter.

I tried to make a "shorter" loop still including what you wanted in Germany combined with Provence and it ended up being longer. I like the plan outlined above and would do it myself if I wasn't allergic to long drives in Europe.

Edit: WHOOPS just saw you are only devoting a week to this trip, not 2. Nevermind. I would not want to drive that in a week, you wouldn't have a chance to step out of the car. This is why I need to read more slowly!

With 1 week, stick to Alsace/Black Forest/Alps at most OR do Provence but not both.