Renting a car England to Italy
I am traveling with a family of 5, have rented car in France before and drove to Italy, but would like to include UK this time, any thoughts on renting in UK and driving to France and beyond? Thanks
Shaun
Mcduffie 11/15/09
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Andreas (twitter.com/ASchuerrle)
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Posts: 1639
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I understand the charme of this long roadtrip. But problem is the one-way rental fee. Also from the UK to France (or Belgium or the Netherlands) you'd have to take a train or ferry boat anyway. With a UK car you as the driver would be sitting on the wrong side of the car for the rest of your trip, i.e. all the way from Northern France to Italy, the bigger portion of your trip I suppose. So if I was you I'd drop off the car in the South of England and pick up a left-hand-side steering one on the Continent.
Most of the big ferry ports have facilities in the terminal for returning / renting cars, so there is no need to take a UK car to the continent. Changing to a new rental car for the continent will probably only add an hour or so to your travel time.
You could load the car on the the car-train at Folkestone and ride in it to France. But then you'd have a right drive car, driving on the right side of the road. And a real nasty drop charge once you leave it on the continent.
Drop the car in the UK, take the Eurostar or fly to France or Belgium and get another car there.