Carpooling.fr (now blablacar) is the free carpooling site for everyone types of trips in France but also everywhere in Europe.
Carpooling is an American concept where you can access the left (fast) lane on the highway provided that you are at least 2 in the car.
It's a way to support carpooling and reduce rush hour traffic and therefore pollution.
Like this practice, the Carpooling site is a platform that allows you to find people who are willing to share a journey. Either a Driver or a Traveler.
- Are you a driver and you want to reduce your "travel budget"? :Just make an offer by submitting an itinerary simply by filling in the fields:route, date and leaving your contact details.
I did it to go to Strasbourg with my in-laws last weekend. The weekend project enchanted me war. Visiting his in-laws is more fun. So I decided not to pay more and therefore to offer the trip on Carpooling. I took a student returning from a trip to India and an airline pilot from Nigeria. I had a great trip, the pilot told us lots of super interesting anecdotes about his travels and the planes, and the student made us want to travel to India. It was a great meeting.
We didn't take the highway, it's expensive and as long as the back roads on our route. So I only spent 30€ on gasoline. And I was paid by my carpoolers €45. So I made 15€ to go see my mother-in-law, which took the pill a bit.
- In the same way, if you are a passenger and you want to travel cheap, it's not more complicated, you just have to choose the route you want to take. Then just contact the driver to define the meeting point and the price of the trip.
It's really practical for the repetitive journeys of daily life to go to work or do your shopping. But it doesn't stop there, with carpooling.fr you can also go on holiday at a lower cost with short-distance journeys in France or long-distance journeys throughout Europe.
A super practical tool will allow you to see the average rates charged throughout France:The Carpooling Price Map. You will know how much a trip costs and you can compare it with the plane or the train. Look on the map, the Paris-Bordeaux is 30 €, which is much cheaper than by plane or train especially if you do it at the last moment. iDTGV offers tickets between €40 and €80 during off-peak periods.
The savings here are rather simple to calculate. Simply divide the gas and toll costs on the ride by the number of people participating. To save as much as possible, you have to share with as many people as possible.
With gas prices so high and the crisis, carpooling is a very good solution to reduce expenses and travel cheaper by choosing collaborative consumption.
