Slovenia travel plan: Hire a driver-guide / chauffeur?
 

Hi. I’ll be travelling to Slovenia with my parents in March. Initially, I planned to rent a car and drive for the whole trip. However, I’m doubting the feasibility of my plan for a few reasons:

- I tend to find driving quite tiring

- I rarely have family holidays like this and have never played the role of a driver-guide when we had holidays

- I will also have the responsibility of taking care of other parts of the trip (e.g. meals)



Here’s what the itinerary looks like for now:

- Day 1: Ljubljana

- Day 2: Postojna Cave - Piran

- Day 3: Škocjan Cave

- Day 4: Soča River - Vršič Pass

- Day 5: Lake Bled

- Day 6: Big Pasture Plateau - Logar Valley

- Day 7: Depart from Ljubljana airport



The current plan is to stay in a different guesthouse/hotel every night (to save time from travelling back to the same place), so I thought renting a car would make things easier as we won’t need to worry about check-in/out time or having to carry out luggage with us.



Do you have any recommendations on where / how I could hire a driver-guide / private chauffeur for the holiday and how much that would cost? (Another idea would be to drive some parts of the trip and follow a few local tours that include transfers so I can rest / enjoy the trip properly sometimes.)



Would also appreciate any other advice, thanks!

I’m one of the few people I know who generally prefers moving on to using a base – but even I try to limit my one-night stays to no more than 2 in any 4 nights! I wonder how your parents feel about it?

I'm not sure I agree that relocating every night eliminates concerns about check-in /check-out times. Will the places you plan to stay have check-in/ check-out times that work for you? For example, will you never want to spend a part of the morning exploring? If not, have you identified options for dealing with your luggage? Other questions:

· Are there stairs that you and your parents will have to negotiate with your luggage?

· Will you, and your parents, be willing to pack and unpack every night?

· If you drive, will you be able to park near your hotel, and if not, would you be able to leave your parents off before parking?

Other comments:

It seems that you have no time in Ljubljana. Is that intentional? I found that small city utterly charming and well worth at least a day. And IMO, there’s more than enough to do in / around Lake Bled to justify a 2-night stay there. I haven’t been to Piran, but from what I’ve read, I’d want more than an overnight there. Slimming your itinerary in a way that gives you more time to see some of these places might make sense – and might help you identify possible places to use as a base.

I think it would be worthwhile to explore your options for using public transportation for at least some parts of this trip. If you haven’t already done so, rome2rio.com is, IMO, a great resource – just be sure to click through to the underlying links. Even google maps can help identify some good options!

If you do decide to drive part or all of this trip, please note that it is never safe to drive within a day or so of crossing multiple time zones. Maybe that’s not an issue … I don’t know what your starting point will be.

Hope that helps!

we used Ljubljana as our base an dwe didn't have a car. We booked day trips to all those places at the tourist bureau and enjoyed travelling that way .I agree with Kia's comments about Ljubljana

I'd forget about the car. Stay in fewer places, not so much moving on. It's tiring and time consuming. Maybe find a tour for a week in Slovenia where they organise everything. Or find a couple of day trips to places of interest. Remember if you have 2 nights somewhere, that gives you one full day.

I tend to agree that relocating any distance often eats up a full day. For a transition of just an hour or two, I disagree -- and I've moved from one location to another just an hour or two away often enough to be able to speak from experience. I'm not saying the OP should do so ... as already noted, there are a lot of things to consider before committing to such an itinerary.

Thanks @kja! Appreciate your suggestions and thank you for reminding me that it won't be a good idea to drive as soon as I land after crossing time zones. :) You're also asking some good questions as I haven't considered how my parents would feel about packing & unpacking every night, etc.

Instead of staying at a different place each night, I will limit the accommodations to maximum 2-3 during the trip. I will also find out more about the public transport options as you suggested.

Thanks @northie and @KayF. May I know which tour operators / websites did you book tours from? I'd be curious to hear more about your experiences. :)

just used local buses, very easy

I just went to the tourist information in Ljubljana and used the ones they had . I also wanted to do a walking tour of Lj as i have an interest in art nouveau .They arranged for a university student to take us -it was fabulous.

Check TripAdvisor for tour ideas, also just google something like Slovenia tour. Always check reviews.

The Slovenian tourist board website is very good.
https://www.slovenia.info/en