ROME – According to the Road Tip Index, the European countries to have obtained the best score for a road trip are Portugal (100), Spain (95) and Luxembourg (91) while Italy (65) does not go beyond ninth place behind Denmark and just ahead of Iceland and Greece. Germany (75) is fourth, France (15) fifteenth and it is clear from the first glance that in the ranking promoted by Kayak the number of ecosystems present in the territory, the quality of the gastronomy and the value of the cultural heritage are not determining factors.
The ranking is in fact based on seventeen parameters divided into six different categories – weather, infrastructure and safety, costs, traffic and sustainability, rental prices, nature and places of interest – and by reviewing the various columns, interesting empirical and absolute oddities. For example, Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands have more attractions every 100km2 of the Italian peninsula. They are small towns, you may say, but from this point of view all our regions are too and each, without exception, is steeped in historical, natural, artisan and architectural wonders. The same bizarre conclusions concern the ranking dedicated to the charm of the landscape in which Iceland is first, Austria second, Norway fifth and Italy twelfth. The aggravating circumstance in this case is that in the evaluation methodology, where each parameter has a value from 1-5 in terms of importance, the landscape has been assigned the highest one.
If the branch of subjective assessments is more questionable than ever, statistical data relating to annual hours of sunshine and rain, exposure to air pollution, traffic in major cities, road quality and average prices for fuel, car rental, hotels and tolls help to understand the high positioning of the Iberian Peninsula. The combination of well-maintained asphalts, charming accommodation at affordable prices, beautiful views from the sea, land and mountains – combined with open spaces and a developed civic sense – make Spain and Portugal particularly suitable destinations for traveling by car. Which, as for all activities related to leisure, is subject to a multitude of individual preferences and therefore the Road Trip Index should be understood as a useful starting point for evaluating the vices and virtues of possible destinations. Northern Europe (also Iceland, Norway and Sweden) for example boasts very tidy roads as well as the lowest percentage of harmful gases and accidents while the beautiful country is in the second half of the ranking on both parameters. The Benelux together with the United Kingdom and Germany, on the other hand, ensure the largest network of electricity columns and here Italy is fifth but at the same time, we are also the country with the third density of cars per hundred inhabitants and our rent a car they are not, on average, cheap.
In the aggregate of figures and statistics, the ranking suggests that the most synergistic elements for a pleasant and relaxing car holiday are moderate traffic, plenty of sunlight, beautiful roads and generally affordable prices. Extrapolating the collection of data acquired in thirty-one European countries from 22 February to 10 March 2021, the Road Trip Index also produced a list of winners for each category where Spain is affirmed in the weather, Ukraine in costs, the Netherlands for sustainability with Switzerland winning gold both in the safety section and in the section dedicated to nature and places of interest.
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