Paper notes or coins for toll road travel?

Wishy-washy reply since nobody else has stepped up, thus subject to correction: The toll on that run (one way) is a bit less than a hundred bucks. FTF would be about two percent, not a killer. I've had mixed results with credit cards in the French system, so no longer attempt to use one. Most of the tolls are in France. The one that I can remeber is Spain is only about ten dollars. I've never seen or heard of an unmanned both in Spain. I've heard of several/lots/increasing unmanned toll booths in France, but only encountered one and it was on a very minor exit. The cost was also minor, so I used coins so don't know if it would have taken bills. The ones along your route are the major, barricade-the whole-highway type, for some of which you would have had to snag a ticket earlier. These suckers all have a couple of manned booths and will take bills. The highest-priced one is somewhere between Grenoble and Valence and it's around twenty-five euro. The others are further south and under twenty euro each. What I'd do is carry at least a hundred euro in bills and ten in coins (just in case you decide to hop off at an odd exit). My practice is to have twenty or thirty euro in coins in the car if I anticpate a lot of toll road usage on any given day. Coming straight out of Switzerland, accumulating the coins right away might be a bit of a pain in the neck. If I were in a really gutsy mood, I'd proabably give it a shot and scoop up coins at the first rest stop. Having done that, they'd probably never be used. Feel free to follow my advice and get burned to a crisp. Bets, Nigel ????

I'm not much help here because I use a Liber-T box in France so I don't even stop at the tolls (do slow to about 20-30 kph) and if I've left the box behind (twice or 3 times) I use the wife who is my co-pilot sitting on the left (I have an English right hand drive car). She uses a Euro debit card linked to our Euro account so we have no fees. Using that card is how we do Italy, too. I've never (cowering madly from the wrath of Ed) been to Spain. So, we don't use actual money at European toll booths. At least I don't remember doing it. Yes I do - heading towards Normandy somewhere near the Somme we had to feed coins for a small toll. The wife handled it well. Sorry not to be more help. BTW - be advised that I do know that if you put in too much money it doesn't make change, and the Italian booths have a couple of strange features. If you want a receipt you have to find the receipt button - often way over to the right side and up - before you feed the machine, and both the ticket and credit/debit card go in the same slot.

Get a better credit card.

"Every single transaction later included a fee on our cc statement." What was the fee, 1% to 3%, same as you would pay at the ATM for cash? As much as I favor paying cash for most things in Europe (ex, the most economical places to stay often don't take cards, so you can save money staying in places that only want cash), it's not to avoid fees. Here you will pay the same fee to use the card or to get notes and coins. But cash almost always works.

Thanks, all. I think I'll follow Ed's advice ~ take along a hundred in bills and ten in coins ~ and blame him if it doesn't work well. ;-) Frank, in light of the fact that we're leaving for CH in one week, getting a different card isn't an option this time around. And overall, we're very happy with our U.S. Bank Flexperk travel rewards card. Lee, when we're in Switzerland, we generally get cash from directly from our bank account there and don't accumulate ATM fees. Thanks again!

Last year, we drove 2,000km in a rented car. Lots of toll roads. Toll booths are not always staffed. For cash, stay to the right when entering the toll booth areas. We tried using our credit cards once. Bad idea. None of our three cards would work. We then paid cash. Some longer day trips, the tolls were up to 20Euros. The cash machines take bills and coins so its not a problem. Just have lots of cash with you.

Thanks, Larry. Living in a toll-free area, I forget how those numbers can add up! Will make sure to have a good sum of cash on hand.

Like Nigel we use the Liber-T pass wherever possible. If not, a huge quantity of coins or a credit card, even with a 1-3% charge.