Every year at Ferrygogo, we dive into the real cost of going on holiday. Not just headline “from” prices, but what a family actually ends up paying. Unsurprisingly, we always start with ferries – that’s our natural habitat. Our latest deep-dive into what a family crossing by ferry really costs is over here, but this time we were itching to go one step further: how does the ferry really stack up against flying?
So we picked a handful of popular night sailings and put them head-to-head with the “equivalent” flight. Not just a plane ticket, but the full picture:
return flights for a family of four, a hotel night before departure, another on arrival, and a week of car hire at your destination. On the ferry side, you sleep in your cabin instead of a hotel and simply roll off with your own car in the morning.
Is it apples and pears? A little bit, yes – the journey experience is completely different. But as ferry geeks and proud ambassadors of the ferry world, we love turning this into something visual and easy to digest. By lining up total trip costs and CO₂ emissions side by side, you get a much clearer sense of what each choice means for your wallet and for the planet.
The idea isn’t to tell you what to do, but to give you the tools to decide:
Do you want the quick hop by plane, or a slower, room-with-a-view crossing where the holiday starts on board?
Flying vs ferry: price and CO₂ side by side
Here we compare two realistic holiday scenarios for a family of four:
- Fly + hotel + car hire: return flights for four people, the first night in the departure city, the last night in the arrival city, plus one week of car hire at your destination.
- Ferry + car: your own car on the ferry, with a basic inside cabin in peak season.
For each route, you can see the total trip cost in pounds and the estimated CO₂ emissions for the whole family (outbound and return). The “Price difference” column shows how much more (or less) you pay when you choose to fly instead of taking the ferry. The CO₂ difference tells you how many kilograms of emissions you save by sailing.
This gives you a clean, like-for-like comparison: not just on ticket price, but also on climate impact – so you can choose the route that fits both your budget and your conscience.
| Route | Fly + hotel + car (GBP, approx.) | Hotel nights (fly) | Ferry (peak, GBP) | Difference £ (fly – ferry) | CO2 fly (kg, family) | CO2 ferry (kg, family) | CO2 saving with ferry (kg) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Newcastle–Amsterdam | £1460 | 2 | £1033 | £427 | 750 | 240 | 510 |
| Kiel–Oslo | £1560 | 2 | £1525 | £35 | 1060 | 260 | 800 |
| Kiel–Gothenburg | £1370 | 2 | £1155 | £215 | 690 | 160 | 530 |
| Portsmouth–Santander (3 nights) | £1450 | 3 | £1276 | £174 | 1350 | 350 | 1000 |
| Dublin–Cherbourg | £1250 | 2 | £1326 | £-76 | 750 | 210 | 540 |
| Portsmouth–Guernsey | £1320 | 2 | £555 | £765 | 280 | 80 | 200 |
| London–Rotterdam (via Harwich–Hook ferry) | £1320 | 2 | £719 | £601 | 460 | 80 | 380 |
| Liverpool–Belfast | £830 | 2 | £608 | £222 | 340 | 90 | 250 |
| Barcelona–Ibiza | £980 | 2 | £829 | £151 | 410 | 120 | 290 |
Newcastle-Amsterdam
Newcastle to Amsterdam is a classic “why would you fly?” route. Once you add flights, hotels and a hire car, flying comes out at roughly £400 more than the ferry for a family of four. On top of that, you emit around 500 kg more CO₂ by taking the plane. With the night ferry, you sleep, sail and roll off just outside Amsterdam with your own car – holiday mode from the moment you board.
Kiel-Oslo
On Kiel-Oslo, the price difference between flying and sailing is tiny – only a few tens of pounds either way in our example. The big gap is in emissions: choosing the ferry instead of the plane saves your family roughly 800 kg of CO₂. You swap airport queues and an extra hotel night for a relaxed mini-cruise, your own cabin and a spectacular approach into Oslo.
Kiel-Gothenburg
Kiel-Gothenburg is one of those routes where the ferry really does the job. The ship is over £200 cheaper than the fly + hotel + car package in our calculation, and your family's CO₂ footprint drops by more than 500 kg. You simply drive on in Germany, sleep on board and drive off in Sweden – no airport transfers, no hire-car desks, just straight on with your road trip.
Portsmouth-Santander (3 nights)
For Portsmouth-Santander, once you build a realistic flight scenario with three hotel nights and a week of car hire, flying ends up roughly £170 more expensive than taking the ferry. On the climate side the difference is huge: the ferry saves your family about 1,000 kg of CO₂ compared with the plane. And instead of racing through London airports, you get a proper sea voyage to Spain with your own car and a sunrise arrival.
Dublin-Cherbourg
From Dublin to Cherbourg, flying can appear a touch cheaper at first glance – in our example, about £75 less than the ferry. But that saving comes with a much higher footprint: the ferry still cuts around 540 kg of CO₂ for a family of four. For Irish families heading to France with a full boot and maybe a roof box on top, the ferry remains the most practical – and far greener – way to cross.
Portsmouth-Guernsey
On Portsmouth-Guernsey the numbers are pretty brutal: flying with hotels and car hire is roughly £750 more expensive than simply taking the ferry with your own car. You pay more than double and still end up with higher emissions – the ferry saves around 200 kg of CO₂ for the family. For this route, sailing really is both the budget-friendly and climate-friendlier way to hop over to Guernsey.
London-Rotterdam (via Harwich-Hook ferry)
Compare London-Rotterdam by plane with Harwich-Hook of Holland by ferry and the difference is clear. The fly + hotel + car package is about £600 more than the ferry, while emitting roughly 380 kg more CO₂ for a family of four. With the night crossing you board in England, sleep, and wake up in the Netherlands ready to drive straight to Rotterdam or deeper into Europe.
Liverpool-Belfast
Liverpool-Belfast is a great example of a short sea crossing where the ferry holds up very well. In our example, flying with hotels and car hire costs around £220 more than taking the ferry, and comes with roughly 250 kg extra CO₂ for the family. The ferry is a simple, low-stress hop across the Irish Sea – you arrive with your own car and can start exploring Northern Ireland straight away.
Barcelona-Ibiza
On Barcelona-Ibiza the “party route” might look cheap by plane, but once you add hotels and a rental car, flying comes out about £150 more than the ferry. By sailing instead, your family also saves close to 300 kg of CO₂. You swap airport faff for a chilled crossing, a bit of sea breeze, and you roll off on Ibiza with your own wheels ready to go.
Would you like to dive deeper into night and day sailing prices for the coming season (2026)? You’ll find everything in this study – including the cost per mile, per person and per crossing for a family of four.
JW, one of the co-founders of FerryGoGo, has a passion for food, drink and travel. He loves exploring data and the history of the destinations featured on FerryGoGo, and he’s always curious about the population of each place. He’s also sailed many of the ferry routes between the UK and the continent himself; from Saint-Malo–Portsmouth to overnight crossings such as Portsmouth–Cherbourg and Newcastle–Amsterdam - so his guides are grounded in first-hand experience.
