The race is not the destination

Race to the track, then linger in the city

Here’s how many Formula 1 fans approach travel when planning their race weekends.

Flights are booked the moment the calendar drops, hotels reserved on Booking.com or Airbnb, possibly overpriced and probably not where you’d normally stay if it were a holiday. That said, easy access to the circuit is important for a few days.

Arrive on Thursday or perhaps Wednesday if travelling long haul. Spend three days in a Formula 1 bubble: the grandstand, the fan zone, a nearby pub or bar where everyone’s wearing team merchandise and talking about tyre strategy. Sunday comes. The lights go out. And away they go, back to the airport, back home, already scrolling the calendar for the next one.

It’s totally understandable, the race is the reason they left home. The race is everything.

In 2024, visiting spectators to the Australian Grand Prix stayed on average 4.5 nights. Similarly, non-local attendees to the 2025 Singapore Grand Prix stayed in the Lion City for 4.5 nights. Add in transfers to and from an airport or train station, and it’s barely longer than the race weekend itself.

But here’s what I’ve realised, after years of travelling the world and following this sport: the race is not the destination. The destination is the destination. And so many race fans are missing it.

Yet, Formula 1 has the most remarkable travel itinerary of any sport on earth. In a single season, race fans can travel to Melbourne and Monaco, Monza and Mexico City, Singapore and São Paulo, Suzuka and Las Vegas. These are not forgettable places devoid of visitor experiences. They are some of the most culturally rich, visually stunning, historically layered cities and countries that exist. And the average F1 fan spends four nights there, sees the inside of a grandstand, and leaves.

I’d like to change that by making the case that the race weekend can serve as the anchor point of a longer journey. To show you why Melbourne is worth at least ten days of your life. And gently persuade you that if you’re going all the way to Japan, you owe it to yourself to stay for two or three weeks. That the Grand Prix is the reason you booked the flight, but it needn’t be the whole story.

There are a million reasons why people just fly in and fly out. It could be work, it could be budget related, or it could be family. But if you’re going to go to the effort of going to a Grand Prix, then adding an extra four, seven or 10 days will only enrich the experience to another level.

The economics work in your favour by arriving early or staying longer for a Grand Prix trip. Usually, the flights are cheaper, there’s more accommodation available, and you’re likely to have a better choice of Airbnbs by booking a longer stay.

When I went to the Monaco Grand Prix, it was because I was in Italy for work that fell through at the last minute, and the Monaco Grand Prix happened to be on in 10 days’ time.

I was able to book tickets, find accommodation in Nice, and go to my first Monte Carlo Grand Prix. Of course, this was before the drive to survive era, one could never do that these days. But we stayed in Nice for an extra four days to explore the area. It was my husband’s first time to the South of France, and it had been years since I’d spent time there myself.

We explored Cap Ferrat, Cannes and Marseille. And we went back to Monaco the day after the race and had the most expensive beer I’ve ever paid for at Cafe de Paris in Place du Casino. After watching cars worth more than my house cruise past, we walked the track and through the famous tunnel. There were workers taking down signage and the remnants of the race, but hardly any other tourists. It was fantastic.

That moment cemented my thoughts about travelling to places for events. About what it means to experience a destination versus just turning up for the action and leaving. Of the tens of thousands of race attendees, how many can say they walked from the Portier under the Fairmont Hotel through Tunnel Larvotto? It’s the only underground tunnel on the F1 calendar.

That’s the gap I want to help close.

Away We Go exists for the fan who wants to stay longer, go deeper, and come home with more than a race programme and a team cap. It’s for the person who books the flight for the race but wants permission or perhaps inspiration to build a whole trip around it. It’s for the traveller who suspects that the best meal they’ll ever eat might be in a tiny restaurant down a side street in a city they only visited because of a Formula 1 race.

Which was exactly what happened to us in Nice. Being a tourist town and being a Formula 1 weekend, a lot of substandard food was served at many of the places we ate at. Nice is well known for this unfortunate fact.

In the days that followed the race, I found a Michelin-starred chef who quit the high-end fine dining scene and had opened up a tiny 12-seater bistro, where he was serving rustic, flavourful French food. There was only a choice of three dishes on the menu, which changed every day depending on what he could find at the market. We were sitting on stools at a small table, the chef cooking in an open kitchen out the back. This bistro was so unassuming from the outside, but it’s a meal that we still talk about to this day because the experience was incredible. We never would have found that had we only stayed for the race weekend.

And as a side note, for a place that’s only an hour and a bit from Italy, I can’t understand how they serve such bad coffee in Nice. It’s unfathomable but true.

This is not a publication about luxury travel though some of these destinations are undeniably glamorous. It’s not a guidebook (I have some destination guides available for downloading here), though you’ll find plenty of practical information here.

Away We Go is something in between. The kind of travel writing where a friend who’s been somewhere tells you exactly what to do, what to skip, where to eat, what you’ll regret missing, and why you should absolutely take that three-hour detour to the place nobody else knows about.

The circuits are just the starting point.

I’m Di, and I’ve spent close to 30 years following Formula 1 and about 14 years as a travel writer. This is where my passions come together. It’s a meeting point of Formula 1 destinations and the stories within, the hidden finds, the slow mornings and long lunches that happen when you stop treating the race weekend as a round trip and start treating it as a beginning.

Welcome to Away We Go. I’m so glad you’re here.

Pull up a seat and let’s talk about travel.

*Away We Go is a newsletter about Formula 1 destinations for the fan who wants to truly experience the places this sport calls home. If someone sent this to you and you’d like to subscribe, you can do that here. And if you listen to the Away We Go Podcast, you’ll find it wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.