ViaMichelin.com: Free Online Driving Directions

I've driven all over Europe, and it can really be a nightmare. If the maniac drivers don’t get you, the bizarre road signage will. This can be particularly frustrating if you’re driving a car tallying mileage – but cruising down roads counting off kilometers. The same goes if you’re a European traveling in the US – must drive you mad, with “miles” and “gallons” written all over the place! Your best bet in these situations having GPS navigation of some kind – but even those can go wonky. And they can certainly break.

Which means you really have no business going anywhere without something on paper. Yeah, maps are great – but they won’t give you step by step instructions, unless they come with a tourguide. I honestly can’t remember how I found it, but ViaMichelin.com is an absolute Godsend. Yeah, that’s Michelin, as in, the puffy-tire-coat man. His site is fantastic, and let me tell you why. All you have to do is know where you are, and where you want to go – he’ll do the rest.

• Want to make a detour on the way? He can swing that for you.

• You can choose what kind of route you want: economic, scenic, fastest, etc.

• You can choose to avoid tolls, border crossings, and congested areas.

• If you have viamichelin on your GPS device, you can have the results sent to it from the computer.

• It tells you how many hours it will take to get there.

• You can get the results in miles or kilometers.

• It tells you how much the road tax will cost.

• It tells you how much the gas will cost.

• It offers maps for each point where you’ll need to change roads.

• It tells you how long you’ll have been driving – and reminds you to take a break!

• It shows you both the local and national signage – important when traveling through the EU, as there are often 3 numbers for each road!

• And – you can even program it to tell give you a route for walking or cycling.

If that’s not enough for you, the site does hotel reservations and restaurants, too. I’ve not used those personally, but I can definitely vouch for the directions. I love this thing, I can’t tell you how often I use it. It’s excellent on all levels – local, national and international. My only complaint is that sometimes there’s more than 1 particularly city in each country – Germany is notorious for this – and it’s sometimes difficult to know which to choose. But with a little effort you can usually figure it out. What are you waiting for? Try it, you’ll like it!

xx Isabella