Good to know!
The winter season is already in full swing due to the heavy snowfall early in the season. If your winter sports holiday by car is already planned, make sure you are well prepared. Make sure you have winter tires on your car, that you have snow chains with you and that you apply for your vignette before you travel. In the past it was sometimes a hassle to apply for that vignette and stick it on your windshield, but nowadays it is a lot easier. You can for example, request your vignette digitally via i-vignette.com.
What is a vignette?
While you can drive anywhere on the highway in the Netherlands without paying tolls, this is not the case in many countries. Especially in Central Europe, in many countries you must have a mandatory car vignette for using the highway, including for your winter sports trip. This applies to the car, but also to the motorcycle and camper. This vignette is then valid for a certain period of time and gives you the right to use the road network on the way to your destination. winter sports destination.
The digital car vignette
The car vignette used to be a sticker that you had to stick on the windshield. That was quite a bit of a hassle, because you had to request it in advance and hope that it was delivered to the letterbox. Or you had to stop somewhere at the border to buy the vignette, which meant you had to search quite a bit and lost valuable time.
Nowadays, however, this can all be done digitally. You can apply for the vignette online for all countries in Europe that you visit by car by registering your license plate and you can then pay for it immediately. That saves a lot of time and hassle. Cameras along the road automatically check whether your license plate is linked to a valid car vignette, so it is virtually impossible to avoid the obligation.
The vignette for the winter sports holiday
In the winter sports countries it varies quite a bit whether you need a vignette or not. For example, Germany is toll-free and France has its own system of toll roads where you have to go through a gate, so you don’t need a special car vignette there. Austria and Switzerland are required to have a car vignette for motorways. For important tunnels you sometimes need an extra vignette. You also need a car vignette in countries such as the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Croatia. The vignettes do not all have the same validity period, so plan your winter sports trip well and avoid unpleasant surprises.
Image: Adobe Stock
