Worried About Driving Abroad? Try Tripiamo—Here’s Why

In today’s review, we’re looking at Tripiamo, an online education platform that helps North American travelers familiarize themselves with driving in other countries.

Does a Tripiamo guide prepare us to self-drive in another country?

Is it worth paying for?

We tested the guides out ourselves and will answer all of that in this review…

Quick Summary: Tripiamo Driving Guide Review

If you are planning to drive abroad in any of the countries where Tripiamo operates, we highly recommend using their online guides as a resource to help you feel prepared, confident, and have a more enjoyable road trip.

The clear and engaging lessons will help reduce stress and anxiety and can be key in mitigating potential costly issues, such as fines or accidents.

Is peace of mind and more confidence on the road worth the small asking price of these lessons? We believe the answer is Yes!

Traveling Abroad: To Drive or Not To Drive

We love road trips. Though we’ve been living and working remotely as Digital Nomads and don’t normally use a car much, we love being on the road and in control of our own transit.

Driving your own car gives you control and freedom to experience your trip on your terms. You’re not at the mercy of schedules and routes. You can create your own adventure.

But adventure also comes with some unknowns and anxiety.

Road trips to an unknown place can already be challenging in your own country where you are familiar with the language and symbols you encounter on road signs. The thought of driving in another country might seem overwhelming.

Personally, we’ve enjoyed road trips in places like Croatia and Portugal. However, that doesn’t mean we always feel comfortable hitting the road in unfamiliar countries.

That’s where a resource like Tripiamo can make a big difference.

What are Tripiamo Driving Guides?

Tripiamo is an online educational platform that hosts guides (online courses) for driving, currently in 6 European and UK destinations:

• Ireland
• UK
• Italy
• France
• Spain
• Germany

> Learn more and purchase Tripiamo guides here <

Once you make a purchase, the guide shows up on your dashboard which you access through an online account.

How to Use Tripiamo Driving Guides

Once you’ve logged into your account and are in your dashboard, open the guide you want to work on. You’ll notice a green status bar indicates how far your gone within the guide based on the number of times you’ve marked a lesson as “complete”.

For this review, I’ll be using the France guide as an example.

When you open up a guide, you’ll notice that it’s broken down into different Guide Sections. Each section has it’s own series of lessons.

As you go through each lesson you mark the lesson “complete” to get the green check mark. The is no test or quiz. You don’t actually have to watch the end of any lesson to mark it complete (though we wouldn’t recommend skipping anything).

Tripiamo Driving Guide Lessons

Each video lesson has its own page. Hit play and dive right in.

Once you’ve started a lesson, you are watching a video. Similar to any video player, the controls will be your best friends, especially pause and rewind.

The only settings you can tweak are the playback quality, skipping to specific chapters, or going full-size (or not). The is no Closed Caption option.

Each video lesson has a narrator with corresponding video and graphics related to the concept being taught.

The quality of each video is pretty good. Though some of the graphics and illustrations could be better (I’m being picky here), they are helpful and clear; and that’s what’s important.

Below is a screenshot that, along with the narration, teaches you that you are not allowed to turn right on a red light in France (unlike in the US):

In this screenshot, the lesson shows who has the right of way in a round-about with a helpful graphic overlay of who should be yielding:

What I particularly like about this video is that they are using a drone shot, so you have a good angle to see what is going on at the round-about and can clearly see the movement of the cars within it.

There were many example shots like this where I appreciated that they changed the camera angle from the first person view to help me understand what was going on.

In some scenarios, the lessons also featured simple animations. Again, not Pixar quality but clear and still helpful:

Each lesson is pretty concise and engaging. I felt the content for each lesson was on point and didn’t ramble or get you distracted. Just tell me what I need to know.

You know its a good lesson when you feel that any question you would have asked were already addressed and that you can remember key points. Simple and effective.

The longest lesson in the France series was 7 minutes. It took me less than 30 minutes to complete the whole guide.

As with most online guides, you can watch and rewatch on demand. 

Finally, I like how the information and the footage seemed current.

Another thing I appreciated was seeing examples of how EV charging works in France. They also talked about recent changes in regulation across the EU on how gasoline (essence in French) is labeled. Helpful to know:

I took a motorcycle driving course online mandated by the State of Oregon and the footage from that was dated, to say the least.

Tripiamo’s footage was clear and you can tell they were using newer technology for most of their examples. Using drones and 360 cameras are a good indication of this and clearly superior footage compared to older video lessons (looking at you, State of Oregon).

Tripiamo Driving Guide: 360 Videos

One of my favorite parts of the guide are the 360 video lessons. Using a computer, you can use your mouse to click, hold, and move the view of the video while watching (or when stopped).

Yes, you can look ALL over what’s going on in a video while it’s playing. Awesome. 

This immersive view allows you to “feel” as if you’re right there on that drive. With video playback controls, you can go back to a lesson point and “look around” to see what’s happening at that moment.

In the following screenshot, the narrator suggests clicking, holding, and moving the video so you can look to the left.

By using the controls, you can look and see what’s happening behind you.

Here’s the same point of the video but looking backward. Notice the indicator on the right of the screen shows where the camera views is oriented.

360 is a really great feature. Though a little disorienting at first, it’s fun to see all the things happening in the video. 

Tripiamo Driving Guide Issues

Overall, I really liked the Tripiamo guide experience. But here are a couple of things I noticed that I hope they look into and possibly address in the near future.

Closed captions and lack of labeling. 

Overall, the narration is clear. However, in the French lessons, there were times when the narrators accent combined with background music made it a little difficult to understand. It was rare but when it happened, I looked for a Closed Caption option. There’s none. 

As for labeling, one of the most helpful lessons was about signage. Here’s a screenshot where just some simple labeling could have been useful during the lesson:

During the video lesson, the narrator points out that this sign means you cannot stop or park. It would be helpful to write what this sign means on the screen as it’s being shown, for those of us visual learners.

Note, they do use helpful labels in lots of other parts of their lessons so this is calling out some of the rare instances where an opportunity was missed.

Taking 360 degree lesson to the next level. 

Since none of the 360 lessons have chapter markers, if you want to go back to review a specific concept, you have to remember where in the video it was. 

I personally would have liked each lesson to be on just one, short, stand-alone concept. So instead of one 7-minute video that shows right of way examples and round-a-bouts, they could break it down into specific, shorter videos for each individual scenario.

Interactive Quizzes. 

Ironically, the State of Oregon’s dated motorcycle lessons had only one advantage over these lessons IMO: interactive quizzes at the end of each lesson. They would give you a scenario or show you a sign, and you have to pick the right answer. Simple, but it was effective.

I’d love to see something like that here, though it’s not necessary. It would be a great way to call out really important takeaways from each lesson.

More Countries and More General Videos.

I really enjoyed these lessons and wish there were more of them! I would have LOVED to have had a guide like this when we drove ourselves in Türkiye, New Zealand, and Jamaica.

I would also love videos on what to do and how to drive between countries that share borders, especially in Europe.

A detailed video lesson on what to do if you are ever in an accident in a specific country would also be helpful. It’s mentioned, but a more detailed version would have been great. 

The Real Value of Tripiamo Driving Guides. Is it Worthy Buying?

The short answer is yes.

Could you do your own research and look up different government websites, blogs, etc…? Sure. But it would take much longer to figure out and wouldn’t be as thorough.

Tripiamo takes all the necessary information and puts it together in an efficient, easy-to-use package.

*Buy your Tripiamo driving guide here*

After going through the guide and video lessons, I felt more confident about taking a drive in France.

Michelle asked me what I learned and immediately I listed off a couple of things:

• The right of way (Priorité à Droite). This was helpful for me to learn that cars on the right often have the “right of way” coming onto a main street. Not the case in the US.
• The lesson on signs, what they mean and what to look for was super helpful.
• The lesson on what kind of fuel to get with the step by step video screens of how to pay at a pump helps demystify that whole process. 

And it goes on.

Again, you can try to do this research on your own, but sometimes it’s nice that all of that need-to-know information is already put together in a complete package. Especially at what I consider an affordable price.

Road trips are amazing. Driving in another country lets you experience it on your own terms. But driving is a privilege. Use intentionality, and respect the other drivers and the country in which you’re going to drive.

A driving lesson guide like Tripiamo helps you learn the important things you need to know to get on the road safely in a new country. It will give you the confidence you need to avoid and mitigate unwanted situations so you can enjoy and create amazing memories on your road trip.

Tell us about your international driving experiences and let us know what questions you have about Tripiamo in the comments below.