Targa to the Alps: Conclusion

Thank you all for following along with us to the Alps and back again. This trip was a bit of a relaxing "greatest hits" route – where we visited some of our favourite places in this beautiful part of Europe.

We had more two-day stops during this trip than we usually do and enjoyed them all immensely.

In 18 days we did 5,408 km over 97:30 hours, with an average speed of 56 km/h, consuming 11.1 litres/100km.

We had 13 fuel stops on the trip, mostly at 98 octane or higher. We consumed 605 litres of petrol at an average cost of €2.42/litre for a total fuel cost of €1,487.49.

That is certainly the most we've spent on fuel on a trip and a testament to both the rising energy costs since the Iran War and also the additional cost of the premium fuels we were using.

We pushed the car hard on both the autobahn and the winding mountain routes, which clearly raised fuel consumption beyond what we expect on a typical Arctic trip.

Thankfully, the car performed flawlessly with zero issues.

We had 267,300 views on the blog during the trip, which is an amazing number for a niche travel blog. We have enjoyed hearing from the many readers emails we received on the trip.

We carried an iPhone 13 mini and an iPhone Air as our personal devices and often tethered our laptop or iPad rather than use hotel Wi-Fi: it is both more secure and often more reliable.

The 13 Mini consumed 83.1 GB of data while roaming while the Air used 47 GB of data for a total of 130.1 GB. Due to EU "roam like home" we did not pay anything additional for this data use while on the road.

We enjoyed the ferries, the mountains, the curves, the hikes, the photography and the lakes very much.

Our luggage kit worked out well, and we became practised in both loading and unloading the car at each of our overnight stops. We think we've figured out the right place for each bit of kit at this stage.

The 911 Targa takes a surprisingly amount of storage once you're organised with it.

Our new iOS app Driveline performed excellently and accurately recorded our precise driven route for each of the 5,400 km. It did so quietly in the background without needing any attention from us.

This is the first road trip where we could share precise maps of our actual route, instead of relying on Google Maps screenshots that only show the approximate suggestion.

There are a few usability tweaks and bugs to be worked out and we'll get to those now that we're back from the trip.

Driveline – your drives, recorded automatically

Track every drive automatically. Driveline records routes, weather & stats the moment you connect via Bluetooth or CarPlay — private, no account.

Targa TripsDamien Glancy

We're already starting to think about our next winter trip, which we hope you'll join us on in the new year.