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Winter Family trip - Drive by car or take fast trains?

From Rick Steves books, I understand the following:

  • Car works good for multiple people cost-wise, those packing slightly heavier and for visiting more rural/remote areas.
  • Trains are more convenient for solo travelers, city-to-city travelers

I also have read many forum threads between drive by car vs trains. However so far I have not found much about whether winter makes a difference in this debate about drive by car or travel by train city-to-city.

For the more rural areas - like Andalucia's White Hall towns, etc. - we will use a car. Where I am undecided is should we use a car or or should we use a train for city-to-city connected by fast trains like AVE & AVANT?

Especially given it is winter. For a family does it make more sense to drive in winter (city-to-city) or is it still more convenient to use high speed trains for city-to-city? As long as the difference in costs is not astronomical - my priority will be to whichever option is more convenient.
Please advise.

Possible reasons why winter may influence the car vs train decision:

  • even if I am staying in city centre of the cities, each of us will need to haul at least one bag from train station to the hotel. This will mostly by taxi but sometimes you still need to walk a lot - and if it is chilly it may not be very convenient.
  • Traffic going into/out of cities may be either lighter or heavier during Christmas / New Years

Little Background Info:

We are a family of 4 - husband, wife and two teenage boys. Everyone will have a rolling carryon size luggage and possibly a small backpack (my backpack will have camera/lenses and maybe a small tripod attached).

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