Renting Cars In Europe – The Adventure Begins!

We Americans are very used to flying around our country to get from point “A” to point “B.” In fact, it is our preferred method for long-distance traveling, even sometimes from city-to-city within states. I’ve frequently flown from San Diego to San Francisco. Why? Because it’s an eleven-hour trip to drive it, that’s why, and that’s each way!

Europcar Counter – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

And that’s one of two major reasons why we fly so much. The matter of time; we never seem to have enough of it. We often have to get where we’re going in a hurry. The second reason is distance. Our country spans the entire width of North America and beyond. You have few travel choices if you want to get to Hawaii, for ex­ample. It’s either by plane, boat, or swimming, and I don’t like sharks. And boats make a lot of people seasick (not me…). So to belabor an obvious point, that means having to fly there.

But truly, the scale of our country is remarkably large compared to most European countries. Have you ever considered the distance from Miami, Florida to Anchorage, Alaska, for instance?  It’s 4,005 miles!

Maui Uaoa Bay Hawaii – Authors, Forest and Kim Starr Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

I did a month-long tour of Europe that included England, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and it came to just about the same mileage as that trip from Miami to Anchorage. And that was the complete loop in Europe. Here in America that mileage only gets you to Anchorage, but doesn’t get you back. So, there’s no doubt about it, flying is often a necessity here.

Transportation In Europe - Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

But not in Europe; once you’ve arrived there, flying is definitely not the way to go in my opinion. Being so much smaller an area, having such incred­ible diversity in cultures and geo­graphies all crammed so close together, Europe calls to the traveler to actually traverse it by some surfaces means. So if you have the time, want to really see things, you should travel in this way. Europe has a marvelous train system, as well as great subway infrastructures in most major cities, and equally impressive bus networks in most countries.

But being Americans, and having had a long love affair with our cars, we do love to drive as well. Here, many people drive across country just for the fun of it. This sort of thing has been popular since the days of “Route 66,” and even before then. We Americans do love to drive when we can. And driving in Europe allows the traveler to get off the beaten path, to explore areas otherwise denied to them. So I highly recommend renting a car while abroad, but with some caveats.

Route 66 Road Sign-Fabio Pozzato Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

First, there is the problem of insurance. It can be expensive. And, reserving you own car by Internet, although often a good way to go, can be tricky. When going to Portugal, I rented a car online in advance, through National. Upon arrival at the Lisbon Airport I went to pick it up, only to find that they insisted upon my either posting a large sum of money as a “bond,” or paying over $200 for extra insurance. Nothing on the website had warned me of this. What I thought was a cheap deal turned out to be not so cheap! What could I do? I ended up by paying the extra money.

So when reserving your car, make very sure you know the full price of that rental. Also, be explicit about the car you want. Europeans seem to prefer standard shift. I don’t. So if you want that automatic, reserve early, assume you will pay more for it, because you usually will.  I was too late and so had to have a stick shift. Not having driven one in 25 years, and having to do it in a foreign country on steep hills – not so great. I’d forgotten how those cars can roll – backwards! So again, reserve your car early on to make sure you get that automatic if you want it.

Another point about insurance; get the full package. Do check with your credit card company, as well, because many automatically give you supplemental insurance when you use them. But the full package really is necessary. Remember, you are driving in a strange land, with unfamiliar signs, rules, and methods of doing things. Roundabouts (traffic circles) have rules you may not be familiar with and in Europe they do use a lot of them. In the United Kingdom, there is always the added fun of doing it on the left side of the road instead of the right. Plus, because you aren’t familiar with the car’s dimensions, it’s easy to scrape a hedgerow, or stone wall. Roads in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe can be incredibly narrow! I scraped a car on my last trip to England. It was only my left mirror, and very minor, but scraping it against a concrete wall of a covered car park didn’t do much for its look. So, full insurance is a very good idea, because that mishap didn’t cost me a thing.

Secondly, I strongly advise some type of navigation equipment, such as Garmin, Tom-Tom, or whatever please you. In Portugal, I had brought along an elaborate and expensive road atlas. It was great to use for traveling on their major highways, but the minute you leave those, enter any village or town, you can forget the maps. Road names are rarely posted in real life in these places. Once in a while, I spotted one at an intersection, inset into a corner building, but for the most part, they just seemed nonexistent. So a road map with names doesn’t help in a town without them. And there are lots of such towns.

For example, I became utterly lost in Lagos, Portugal. Again, there were very few street signs in town. Upon entering the place, within about five minutes, I didn’t know where I was. I kept trying to find my way “out,” only to find I was lost in a maze of smaller and smaller streets, some so narrow my car practically brushed the walls and it was a small car!

Casa di Cura Cottolengo, Meugliano, Turin, Italy – Laurom, Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Finally, when one street became so narrow as to be impossible to see ahead, I stopped the car. My father got out (only he could, because my door was within mere inches of a wall), and walked in front of the vehicle to see where the road led. That was nowhere, as it turns out. The road became, abruptly and without any signs or warnings of any kind whatsoever, a steep staircase down a hillside. It was very quaint, no doubt, but also very dangerous. Imagine if I had kept going a few more feet. I had to back all the way out. Not a pleasant experience, especially not after hours of driving south from Lisbon, and feeling desperately tired.

The next time I traveled and rented a car, I also rented a Tom-Tom. This was for nineteen pounds a day in England, which right now figures out to about $31.54 at current exchange rates. This was not cheap by any standards, but it worked beautifully for me, saved me tons of time and loads of frustration. England, like Portugal, seems very short on street signs once you are in a village or town. But with my trusty Tom-Tom, I always found my way. I even convinced an English friend of it’s worth. He bought one. Even the British have problems finding their way around villages, it seems.

There is also the matter of buying gasoline or “petrol.” Because my car was strange to me (a Mercedes), I had no idea how to release the gas cover. I asked two English people who were filling up to help me, but neither of them knew how either, although they really tried. Twenty minutes later, my father “stumbled” on the secret. Oh, and knowing the real price of gas isn’t easy either. In Europe, they sell it by the liter. Just trying to figure out how much that is a gallon was difficult, and then to try to convert the cost from euros or pounds to dollars in my head was even worse.

So besides that piece of navigation equipment, here is something else you should consider taking with you to Europe. If you have a mobile phone with Internet browser capability, bring it! With it, you can access Currate.com at http://currate.com/m.php. for their currency conversion features. If your mobile phone use more enhanced features, try going to http://currate.com/e.php. That way, you will always have, right at hand, the means to figure out just what that liter of gas is really costing you. And make no mistake, whether euros or pounds, their fuel stations can have very different prices. And also remember that Currate.com has actual images of over 180 currencies. This is a great feature for any traveler who finds they are moving from country-to-country with different currencies. Currate.com also has a Google-style world currencies map where you can just point and click to your destination and its currency.

USD EUR Italy World Currencies Map - Currate.com

Traveling requires preparation and that’s just as true for renting that car you want to use. And although most of us don’t like paying more, sometimes it is worth it. So, rent that car. Make sure one way or the other you have full insurance, and either bring along, or rent a navigation device to go with your car. And do remember that if you don’t like stick shifts, you should reserve an automatic well before your trip. And that expensive road atlas – well, they can be handy, but nothing replaces my Tom-Tom! I bought one as soon as I came home, and I’m downloading the European map into it for my next trip this coming March. To paraphrase, “I won’t leave home without it.” No more staircase streets for me!

Rob Shelsky, Currate.com Contributing Editor
Robert Rademacher, Currate.com Editor-in-Chief

References:

Currate Currency Tools:
http://currate.com

Travelmath
http://www.travelmath.com/flight-distance/from/Anchorage,+AK/to/Miami,+FL

How To Rent A Car Abroad
http://www.ehow.com/how_135792_rent-car-abroad.html

Renting A Car Abroad
http://www.greatgapyears.co.uk/renting-a-car-abroad.html

Road Signs In Europe
http://www.reidsguides.com/t_au/t_au_road_signs.html

Unhelpful Road Signs
http://blog.ivman.com/unhelpful-road-signs/

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