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Choose where you’re driving to in France and this planner compares every Channel crossing: the drive from each ferry port and the Eurotunnel terminal, the crossing time and your fuel cost. Add your UK starting city to see the whole journey door to door. The figures cover 38 French cities and areas from Calais, Dunkirk, Dieppe, Caen, Cherbourg, St Malo, Roscoff and the LeShuttle terminal.
Plan your drive
Driving times and distances are road-routing estimates from OpenStreetMap data (calculated 6 October 2026), from the French terminal to the city centre, without traffic, stops or check-in. Crossing times are from the ferry companies and LeShuttle, checked October 2026. Tolls aren't included. Checked 10 October 2026.
Map of the crossings
Every ferry route and LeShuttle from England to France. Tap or hover over a crossing to highlight it.
- Dover to Calais 1 hr 30 to 1 hr 40
- Folkestone to Calais by LeShuttle 35 minutes
- Dover to Dunkirk About 2 hrs
- Newhaven to Dieppe About 4 hrs
- Portsmouth to Caen About 6 hrs by day, 7 to 8 hrs overnight
- Portsmouth to Cherbourg About 7 hrs 45 to 8 hrs 30, overnight
- Portsmouth to St Malo About 11 hrs 30, overnight
- Plymouth to Roscoff About 5 hrs 15 by day, 9 to 10 hrs overnight
Crossing lines are a guide, not the exact route. Coastlines: Natural Earth.
How to choose your crossing
The quickest crossing on the clock is nearly always the shortest one. From most of England, LeShuttle from Folkestone or the ferry from Dover to Calais gets you there soonest, because the 35-minute or 90-minute crossing more than makes up for the longer drive in France. That’s why the planner usually shows one of them as “Quickest overall”.
But time isn’t the only thing that matters on a long trip. The western ferries can take hundreds of miles off the drive in France:
- Bordeaux: about 543 miles from Calais, but 329 miles from St Malo.
- Biarritz: about 666 miles from Calais, but 452 miles from St Malo.
- La Rochelle: about 432 miles from Calais, but 198 miles from St Malo.
- Nantes: about 373 miles from Calais, but 110 miles from St Malo.
Fewer miles in France means less fuel, fewer tolls and less time on unfamiliar roads. Portsmouth to St Malo and Portsmouth to Cherbourg sail overnight, so you can sleep in a cabin and start the drive in the morning. Portsmouth to Caen and Plymouth to Roscoff have overnight sailings as well as daytime ones.
From the south-west of England the western ferries often win on time too. From Plymouth, the planner shows Plymouth to Roscoff as the quickest way to Bordeaux, La Rochelle, Toulouse, Biarritz, Nantes and Rennes. Plymouth to Roscoff is seasonal: Brittany Ferries runs it from late March to early November.
Heading east, to Strasbourg, Lyon or the Alps, Calais, Dunkirk and the Eurotunnel terminal are the natural choice. Calais is the closest port to Strasbourg, and for Lyon the drive from Dieppe is only half an hour shorter than from Calais.
Drive times from the French ports
This table shows the drive from each main French port to major cities, without stops or traffic. The shortest drive for each city is highlighted. Dunkirk and the Eurotunnel terminal are within about 20 minutes of the Calais times; use the planner above to see them.
| To | From Calais | From Dieppe | From Caen | From Cherbourg | From St Malo | From Roscoff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paris | 3h 10m 180 miles | 2h 30m 123 miles | 2h 55m 153 miles | 4h 15m 223 miles | 4h 35m 250 miles | 6h 30m 349 miles |
| Disneyland Paris | 3h 15m 188 miles | 3h 00m 152 miles | 3h 25m 182 miles | 4h 45m 252 miles | 5h 00m 279 miles | 6h 45m 369 miles |
| Lille | 1h 20m 70 miles | 2h 55m 150 miles | 4h 20m 249 miles | 5h 40m 319 miles | 5h 55m 346 miles | 8h 05m 454 miles |
| Rouen | 2h 20m 134 miles | 0h 55m 42 miles | 1h 35m 86 miles | 3h 00m 157 miles | 3h 15m 184 miles | 5h 25m 291 miles |
| Rennes | 5h 35m 329 miles | 4h 00m 231 miles | 2h 15m 124 miles | 2h 45m 146 miles | 0h 55m 43 miles | 2h 40m 132 miles |
| Nantes | 6h 25m 373 miles | 4h 50m 277 miles | 3h 30m 190 miles | 4h 00m 213 miles | 2h 15m 110 miles | 3h 55m 196 miles |
| Tours (Loire Valley) | 5h 35m 329 miles | 4h 00m 231 miles | 3h 00m 171 miles | 4h 15m 238 miles | 3h 35m 199 miles | 5h 20m 289 miles |
| La Rochelle | 7h 35m 432 miles | 6h 05m 337 miles | 5h 05m 276 miles | 5h 50m 302 miles | 4h 00m 198 miles | 5h 45m 285 miles |
| Limoges (Limousin) | 7h 05m 424 miles | 6h 10m 349 miles | 5h 55m 312 miles | 7h 15m 379 miles | 6h 20m 312 miles | 8h 00m 399 miles |
| Bordeaux | 9h 00m 543 miles | 7h 25m 445 miles | 6h 25m 384 miles | 7h 35m 432 miles | 5h 45m 329 miles | 7h 30m 416 miles |
| Sarlat (Dordogne) | 8h 45m 509 miles | 7h 50m 434 miles | 7h 35m 396 miles | 8h 55m 464 miles | 7h 50m 432 miles | 9h 30m 519 miles |
| Biarritz | 11h 00m 666 miles | 9h 30m 568 miles | 8h 30m 507 miles | 9h 35m 555 miles | 7h 50m 452 miles | 9h 30m 538 miles |
| Toulouse | 10h 05m 601 miles | 9h 10m 526 miles | 8h 50m 532 miles | 10h 00m 580 miles | 8h 10m 477 miles | 9h 50m 563 miles |
| Carcassonne | 11h 00m 658 miles | 10h 00m 583 miles | 9h 45m 589 miles | 10h 50m 637 miles | 9h 05m 533 miles | 10h 45m 620 miles |
| Montpellier | 10h 40m 657 miles | 9h 55m 571 miles | 9h 50m 582 miles | 11h 05m 649 miles | 10h 20m 601 miles | 12h 00m 688 miles |
| Avignon (Provence) | 10h 00m 612 miles | 9h 25m 547 miles | 9h 50m 577 miles | 11h 10m 648 miles | 10h 50m 630 miles | 12h 35m 717 miles |
| Marseille | 10h 50m 664 miles | 10h 15m 599 miles | 10h 40m 629 miles | 12h 00m 700 miles | 11h 40m 683 miles | 13h 25m 769 miles |
| Nice | 12h 30m 763 miles | 11h 55m 698 miles | 12h 15m 728 miles | 13h 40m 798 miles | 13h 20m 781 miles | 15h 05m 868 miles |
| Lyon | 7h 35m 473 miles | 7h 05m 408 miles | 7h 25m 438 miles | 8h 45m 509 miles | 8h 30m 492 miles | 10h 15m 579 miles |
| Annecy | 8h 25m 512 miles | 8h 05m 457 miles | 8h 25m 487 miles | 9h 45m 557 miles | 9h 45m 568 miles | 11h 30m 638 miles |
| Chamonix (Alps) | 9h 00m 556 miles | 8h 35m 501 miles | 8h 55m 531 miles | 10h 20m 601 miles | 10h 15m 613 miles | 12h 00m 682 miles |
| Dijon (Burgundy) | 5h 40m 355 miles | 5h 30m 314 miles | 5h 55m 344 miles | 7h 15m 415 miles | 7h 10m 426 miles | 9h 00m 516 miles |
| Strasbourg (Alsace) | 6h 15m 388 miles | 6h 40m 388 miles | 7h 45m 462 miles | 9h 05m 533 miles | 9h 20m 559 miles | 11h 10m 649 miles |
Planning a long drive
The times in the planner are for driving without stops. On a real journey you’ll need to add breaks, fuel stops and time for traffic around cities such as Paris, Lyon and Bordeaux.
Take breaks. The French government’s road safety advice is to stop for at least 15 minutes every two hours, even if you feel fine. On the 12 hrs 30 min drive from Calais to Nice, that’s at least six stops, adding an hour and a half before you count meals or fuel.
Split very long drives. Anything over about 10 hours of driving is a long day after an early start and a Channel crossing. Many families stop overnight halfway, or take an overnight ferry so they arrive rested.
Remember the time difference. France is one hour ahead of the UK, so you lose an hour on the way out. Ferry timetables show local times.
Take your time when you leave the ferry port or Eurotunnel. Most errors are made within the first few miles.
Before you go, check you have everything the law requires: our what you need to drive in France guide and driving kit checklist cover it. If your route passes through a city with a low-emission zone, you’ll need a Crit’Air sticker.
Tolls
Most long routes in France use autoroutes, and most autoroutes have tolls. The planner doesn’t include them, because the price depends on the exact route you take and your vehicle class, and each motorway company sets its own prices. To find the toll for your route, use the calculator on the French motorway companies’ association site, autoroutes.fr, or on a motorway operator’s site such as VINCI Autoroutes. Our French toll roads guide explains how paying works.
How the fuel cost is worked out
The planner takes the miles you’ll drive (UK and France, and the way home if you tick the return box), divides by your car’s miles per gallon and converts gallons to litres (one UK gallon is 4.546 litres). It then multiplies by the fuel price you enter. Prices vary from one filling station to the next: the French government’s prix-carburants.gouv.fr site shows the prices at filling stations along your route. More in fuel and EV charging in France.
Where the figures come from
Drive times and distances are road-routing estimates from OpenStreetMap data, calculated on 6 October 2026 with the OSRM routing engine: from the UK city centre to the UK terminal, and from the French terminal to the French city centre. They don’t include traffic, roadworks, stops or check-in. Crossing times are the ones the ferry companies and LeShuttle publish, checked in October 2026, and timetables change, so check the sailing you want when you book. For each crossing, our sister site has the timetable, ships and booking.
France route planner: drive times from every ferry port and Eurotunnel FAQs
How long is the drive from Calais to the south of France?
Without stops, about 10 hrs 40 min to Montpellier (657 miles), 10 hrs 50 min to Marseille (664 miles) and 12 hrs 30 min to Nice (763 miles), using road-routing estimates without traffic. With a 15-minute break every two hours, as the French authorities advise, add over an hour. Most people stop overnight on the way.
How long does it take to drive from Calais to Paris?
About 3 hrs 10 min for the 180 miles from the Calais ferry port to central Paris, without traffic or stops. From the LeShuttle terminal it's about 3 hrs 20 min.
Which ferry port is closest to Bordeaux?
St Malo: about 5 hrs 45 min and 329 miles to Bordeaux, against about 9 hrs and 543 miles from Calais. The Portsmouth to St Malo ferry sails overnight, so you can sleep on board.
Is it quicker to take Eurotunnel or the ferry to France?
On the clock, LeShuttle is usually quickest: the crossing takes 35 minutes, against 1 hr 30 to 1 hr 40 from Dover to Calais. LeShuttle asks you to arrive 1 to 2 hours before departure. The longer western ferries take more time overall from most of the UK, but they can save you hundreds of miles of driving in France.
Which crossing is best for Brittany and the west of France?
For Brittany, the Vendée and the Atlantic coast, the western ferries cut the most driving: St Malo is about 55 min from Rennes and 2 hrs 15 min from Nantes, and Roscoff is about 2 hrs 40 min from Rennes. From Calais, Rennes is about 5 hrs 35 min away.
How often should I stop on a long drive in France?
The French government's road safety advice is to stop for at least 15 minutes every two hours, even if you feel fine. On a 10-hour drive that's at least four stops.
Does the route planner include tolls?
No. Toll prices depend on the exact route and your vehicle class, and are set by each motorway company. The French motorway companies' association (ASFA) and the operators have calculators that give the price for your route.
How accurate are the drive times?
They're road-routing estimates from OpenStreetMap data, from the French terminal to the city centre, without traffic, roadworks, stops or check-in. Real journeys usually take longer, especially on summer Saturdays.