Tunnels to Italy - Very Claustrophobic and want to avoid. Help!
 

I have a huge PTSD problem and am extremely claustrophobic. Damnable affliction and I'm searching for therapeutic answers. Meanwhile I want to see the land of my mother's people near Rome. Flying is a claustrophobic experience for me so I drive or cruise everywhere. Next summer I'm going to cruise from NYC to Hamburg or Southhampton and then rent a car and drive to Italy. I've read on Fodor that going through Austria to Italy is a good way to avoid tunnels but that post was years ago. What experience do you have with the tunnels? Advice? Thanks

I am mildly claustrophobic .. not as bad as you, but it does bother me. I have been driven ( so the passenger) through those tunnels,, and I just have to close my eyes and wait till weve emerged( its at most a few minutes) .. that wont work if you are the driver. If you cant find a route that avoids all tunnels , or dont have a partner that will drive them.. then personally I would take trains.. The tunnels likely do not bother most people but I can sympathize with you ... hopefully someone can give you a "safe" route.

There are roads that go up and over the Alps and if you go via Spiez you put your car on trains that go thru the tunnels very quick. No driving required on Simplon Pass and Gotthard Pass routes - just drive onto trains.

If you really want to pull this through you should sail to Hamburg.

There are no long tunnels from Hamburg to the border of Austria with Italy when you take the route via Brenner Pass.
Motorways 7 > Würzburg. 3 > Nuremburg. 9 > Munich. 99 > Munich beltway. 8 > Rosenheim. 93 > Kufstein (Austria). 12 > Innsbruck. 13 > Brenner Pass (Italy).
There are 2-3 very short tunnels (500 yards or so) near Innsbruck which can easily be by-passed on regular roads, if necessary.
One longer tunnel runs under the river Elbe in Hamburg, but can also be avoided by using the bridges across the Elbe.

No idea what the situation is from the Italian border to Rome, though.

Why rent a car and not fly? Renting car in Germany and returning in Italy could have huge drop-off charges for so doing. Why drive - afraid of flying?

Travelling in the summer there are so many ways of avoiding tunnels and in fact many of the mountain passes are spectacular. With a bit of advance planning using Google maps or similar a route can easily be planned.

If you rent a car in Southhampton, you'll have to take a long tunnel to get to the continent, so I suggest you get the car in Hamburg. Or you could take a ferry to a French port after arrival in Southhampton, I have a feeling you'd run into tunnels long before getting to the Italian border, though. Can you tolerate short tunnels, or are you averse to all of them?

It's not easy to avoid tunnels even once you get to Italy. There's a mountain range right down the center of the country. I checked via.michelin.com to see if they allow you to plan routes that avoid tunnels, but they don't.

I can think of several possible solutions. Would you be bothered by tunnels if you were asleep? You can take an overnight train from Paris to Milan. Then you would just have to figure out how to get to Paris without going through a tunnel. And, as I said, it's hard to avoid tunnels in Italy as well.

You might be able to get a boat in Southhampton to take you to Italy. Civitavecchia is the port nearest Rome. Have you looked into passage on merchant ships?

https://www.tripsavvy.com/tips-for-c...go-ship-459680

Night train from Paris could make sense and pick up car in Italy - for lots on trains and night trains check www.seat61.com; BETS-European Rail Experts and www.ricksteves.com.

As I said, it wouldn't be easy to avoid tunnels in Italy, even if you get there. Some people are not as bothered by tunnels when riding on a train. Maybe some ear plugs, an eye mask, and a sedative would make the train trip tolerable. (The ear plugs would avoid the ear popping that often occurs in tunnels.)

The OP already said that their claustrophobia makes flying unbearable. As someone who is claustrophobic and has fear of heights, I have problems with flying too, which I fortunately am able to combat with a healthy dose of anti-anxiety drugs. But that's not enough for some people.

Thanks. And where do you go on the trains? I've read where one person found herself trapped in her car in a steel box of some sort. So, what's it like in your experience? (I also get panicky btw when I take the train into Penn Station in NYC and it goes into a dark tunnel preparing to disembark. I've got it very bad.

They wouldn't have to take a tunnel to get from Southampton, there are plenty of ferries. You could get a ferry to France pick the car up there and drive down to Italy through France and along the Riviera. Or over the passes, though some of those can be nerve racking.
There are ferries from Portsmouth to France, so close to Southampton.
If you go through Austria or Switzerland remember you need a toll badge. You can now buy an e-vignette for Austria: https://www.asfinag.at/en/

One can go over the St. Gotthard pass from Switzerland to Italy. There is a very short tunnel on the way up. It is definitely worth it if one likes Alpine scenery.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fod...2cfdc76672.jpg
That's the view from the top of the pass. The one problem is getting directions to that road when in the valley near Lucerne because Swiss road signs assume that everyone has a vignette and will use super highways which in this instance would go through a very long tunnel. It is possible to use viamichelin.com and specify non toll roads to get a map that avoids the toll roads.

There are many tunnels between Bologna and Florence which can be avoided by using local roads rather than the autostrada. However, in both cases it will lengthen the trip considerably. It took me all day to drive from Lake Como to Lucerne by going over the pass.

Consider doing the driving part in the states and pick up a cruise in Florida (Port Canaveral, Ft Lauderdale or Miami) that goes to Italy.

Vacationstogo is an easy site to research this. Type in Transatlantic as a cruise type or destination. I do not remember the departure cities off hand, but I saw some TA cruises to Genoa and to Rome. Easier to find in Spring.

They might be a bit more expensive than from NY, but you would not incur the car drop off fees in Europe, the tunnels, etc. and you would arrive exactly where you want to be.

When is the trip?
How and when do you plan your return?
You may have more difficulty finding a good return cruise in Spring or Summer.

go via Nice and take roads to Italy that do not go thru tunnels - I believe there are some that do not go thru any tunnels. Like Nice-sospel-Turin if not seaside roads.

Reading the OP through would answer your question . . . >> Flying is a claustrophobic experience for me so I drive or cruise everywhere. <<. Enough said, he isn't even flying transatlantic.



justheavenfun: For this trip Hamburg would work better than Southampton. But if none of the solutions posted so far work for you (and yes, there are routes that avoid tunnels) maybe on a future trip cruise to Barcelona instead, and drive or take trains from Spain through France to Italy.

Nice to Italy and beyond it is virtually impossible to avoid tunnels. They may be short but there are many.

From Barcelona to Italy, there are large ferries and there are cruise ships that do circuits, allowing you to get on and off in any port they stop in. Most go to at least one or more ports in Italy.
The biggest problem may be the return cruise and travel by land to that port.

Maybe take boat from England to France and drive to Nice and take ferries to Corsica and from there to Italy - no necessary tunnels at all on that route.

From July though October, you can drive over most of the passes rather than taking the tunnels. It should be mentioned that I have had passengers freak out more often on the incredible twisty cliffhanging roads than in any tunnel.