We have had a number of questions about how we are getting around in Europe, so I put this post together to share our approach and experiences with respect to car rentals. You can also find this on our “RTW Planning Resources” under “Ground Transportation – Car Rentals“.
Renting a car may not seem like the obvious choice for budget travel, but once you take into consideration where you want to go, how long you will travel, and the number of people you need to move, it may make more sense to do so.
We looked at a number of different options for our ground transportation, particularly in Europe.
Eurail passes have been the mainstay of budget transportation in Europe since backpacking began! You can get to the centre of all major cities and many smaller towns in Europe by train, and the quality and timeliness of trains is generally pretty good. The seating is comfortable, and often there is wifi on board. Getting to rural areas can be more challenging, and may require multiple trains or train/bus combinations. Katina and I used Eurail passes when we backpacked across Europe for our honeymoon. At that time it was the best low-cost and flexible way for us to travel given where we wanted to go and for the period of time we were to be in Europe.
The passes come in a number of varieties:
- Global Pass – explore up to 24 different countries (this would have been our option)
- Select Pass – select 4 bordering countries to travel through
- Regional Pass – select from a number of 2-country combinations (e.g. Germany and France)
- One-country Pass – select a pass for one country
The passes are available in different lengths of time, from 5 days for the Select Pass to 3 months for the Global Pass. For our family, a 3-month family pass (3 adults since Mikhaila is over 12 years of age) would cost €5,400 – about $7,500 Canadian.
For our trip, this would not be the best solution for a number of reasons:
- Length of time. Our travels in Europe will exceed 90 days
- Places we wanted to visit. Our travels will not only take us to major centres…we will be visiting rural areas as well.
General Car Rental Tips
Rumour: apparently if you reserve the smallest vehicle available at an agency online ahead of time, there’s a huge chance you will get upgraded because they rarely have that vehicle in stock. I haven’t tried that one yet…
Fuel: Fuel prices are extremely high in Europe. For diesel, the prices have ranged between $1.80 CAD /litre up to $2.30 CAD /litre. For regular gasoline, the prices have ranged between $1.95 CAD /litre and $2.50 CAD /litre. Opt for a diesel engine whenever you can. The cost of fuel is lower and the range – the distance you can drive on a full tank – is higher.
Transmission: standard or automatic? In Europe it is not common to drive a vehicle with an automatic transmission. Almost all vehicles – including cars, vans, and trucks – come with a standard/manual transmission. Even if you get an automatic, often it is a ‘hybrid’ automatic, meaning that the car is basically doing the work of the clutch and shift for you, but the shifts are not as smooth as you might expect. In addition, if you opt for an automatic transmission you should expect to pay about 30% more for your rental.
Long term rentals: in Europe, we discovered that you can get a long term rental (also known as a lease buy-back) through Peugeot. The way it works is that you order your brand-new, off the assembly line vehicle ahead of time for a specified date range. The lease needs to be 21 days or greater. At the end of your ‘lease’, Peugeot agrees to purchase the vehicle back from you and then presumably they either sell it or rent it elsewhere. The cost of the rental includes zero deductible insurance and free road-side assistance. In the end, this is the route we chose to take.
Gemut.com
This family business run out of Seattle, Washington USA specializes in European car rentals. I have personally rented through them several times while in Europe over the past several years. They have travel expertise which has proven to be extremely valuable on the transportation side of things. This is where I learned about long term rentals through Peugeot. Their webpage also has a variety of travel related information, so they’re not just car rentals!
Gemut books the rental for you through all of the big-name rental agencies – Enterprise, Europcar, Budget, Avis etc. – but they do it for much less. You’re getting the same quality of vehicle as if you had booked directly through the rental agency’s web page or made your booking directly by phone.
I worked with Bob at Gemut, and he was able to secure a Peugeot 5008 diesel for us. This vehicle is about the size of a Honda CRV. It easily holds all of our luggage, with room to spare. When I picked the vehicle up from Peugeot it only had 4 km on the odometer!
As part of my research I went online to try and find a lower cost. Using the exact same vehicle specifications and dates, I was shocked to discover that renting the vehicle directly through one of the ‘chain’ agencies would cost 3x more than what I was paying through Gemut, and almost 1/2 the cost of Eurail passes for the family.
If you are planning to go to Europe and will be renting a car, start with Gemut. I made a lot of changes to our rental plans over the course of several months, and Bob and team were always very helpful to make sure that we got the best vehicle for our needs.
Driving in Europe? Here’s a FANTASTIC RESOURCE!!!
Bob and Andrew also published a very helpful document on their website called “What you should know about renting a car in Europe in 2014”, and you can find it here. For instance, did you know that when you drive through Austria or Switzerland that you have to purchase a sticker for your windshield for the use of toll roads? Neither did I! The fines can be hefty if you do not have one…
Hotwire.com
Many know about using Hotwire for finding hotel rooms, but their car rentals are very competitive as well. When we’re not renting through Gemut, Hotwire is a close second. With Hotwire, you can reserve a vehicle well in advance and there is no commitment, so you can cancel at any time. As we got closer to booking our travel, I placed ‘holds’ on cars well in advance of when we thought we may need them. When our dates changed or we ended up not needing the vehicle after all, I simply went to the hotwire.com site and canceled my reservation. I had a couple of instances when the rental agent – Europcar for instance – had to double check the rate when I went to pick up the vehicle because they could not believe the deal we were getting!
I also kept an eye on the rental prices through hotwire as our dates approached and the prices did increase drastically the closer the rental request was to the needed date.
The worst time to try and rent a car in Europe is during the summer high season, so if you have a sense as early as March or April of what your dates may be, start booking your car (and flight!) at that time…you’ll save a lot of money.
Epilogue – How did it all work out in the end?
As of December 3rd, 4.5 months into the trip, we rented 4 different cars and drove over 16,000 km:
Ireland – Skoda Octavia Diesel (automatic transmission) – enjoyable to drive, lots of trunk space for our luggage with room to spare.
England/Scotland – Fiat 500L Diesel (manual transmission) – a bit different to drive, it feels like you’re in a bubble. Not a lot of extra space…we were not able to cover our luggage in the trunk.
“Mainland” Europe – France through to Italy – Peugeot 5008 (automatic transmission) – perfect sized car for us. Comfortable for everyone with plenty of space. The trunk fit all of our luggage plus bags of groceries we purchased along the way – and we could still pull the trunk cover over top of everything. Firm, quiet drive on the highways.
Side-trip to Essen – Volkswagen Passat Wagon (manual transmission) – lots of room for all of us. I am sorry to say that I was disappointed with the ride, particularly the amount of road noise even at lower speeds. The built-in GPS would not recalculate when I missed a turn (hey, it happens!) so I ended up using our Garmin that we had brought with us.
Each car was selected to allow enough space for the 4 of us to travel comfortably with all of our luggage, sometimes for long periods of time. The only vehicle that was a bit tight was the Fiat 500L. For instance, we were not able to pull the cover over our luggage, which was a problem at times when we had all of our luggage and we were touring.
Our Peugeot was enjoyable and comfortable to drive for long periods of time. It has a 1.3 litre diesel engine, and had great fuel economy. It was not a racing car by any means. When driving on the autobahn in Germany, I had to plan out when I was passing a slower car in front of me because if I got into the passing lane and a Mercedes/BMW/Audi was coming up at 180 km/h, there was no chance I was getting out of the way fast enough!
We did have one incident with the Peugeot which in the end turned out very well. We were enroute to Marseilles from Barcelona, and our vehicle was broken into via a smash-and-grab at a rest stop. They broke the small window on the front passenger side and grabbed Katina’s bag. Luckily not a lot was taken. From the car perspective, the Peugeot lease included full-coverage insurance with zero deductible. I called the 24 hour hotline and we were quickly set up with an auto glass repair shop. By 5pm the next day we were on our way to our next destination. While it was a bump in the road, the insurance company smoothed it out for us.
When I think of all the places we went over the 4.5 month period, it would have been very difficult to do without a car. The main cities such as London, Paris, Berlin, Dresden, Barcelona, etc. would have been ok to travel by train. However, to make it to the Flower Parade in Loenhout, Belgium, or to do house sitting at the farm in Bagneres-de-Bigorre, France, would simply not have been possible. When travelling with a family of 4, the cost is reasonable and you simply cannot beat the convenience. We’ll see what happens in the next phase of our journey when driving a car (India!) will not be an option!
Comments
2 responses to “Special Report – Car Rentals!”
Hi! I’m thinking about doing this Peugeot lease situation as we will be travelling around western Europe with a toddler this year. I already have Gemut open in my browser 🙂 Just wondering where you picked up your car, and how long you used it for?
Cheers, Karly
Hi Karly,
The short-term lease was awesome for us, and having traveled with our own kids when they were toddlers, having a car will give you lots of flexibility. If you want to see the different vehicles available through the Peugeot program, you can go to the Auto Europe website where they have brochures of the available vehicles (http://www.autoeurope.com/long-term-car-rental/fleet/).
I would not advise picking up in the UK as you will have a right-hand drive vehicle there, and when you get to the rest of Europe it will be a challenge to drive.
If you can drive a standard transmission and get a diesel engine, you will save both on your rental cost (manual transmission costs up to 1/3 less on average) and your operating costs – diesel is cheaper and you go a lot further on the same amount of fuel.
For pickup and drop off locations, you can look here – it lists all of the countries where you can pick up or drop off. We picked ours up in Paris and dropped off in Rome. France has the most, and most of the other countries where you can do a pick up or drop off only have one or two locations. http://www.autoeurope.com/long-term-car-rental/locations/
They charge a drop off fee if you don’t bring it back to the location you picked up from, but I think for us it was around $300, so totally worth it.
If you only have the one child, then you may not need a vehicle as large as what we had. The Peugeot 5008 was large, about the size of a Honda CRV.
In terms of length of time, I think the minimum lease period is 21 days. We had ours for 3 months.
Finally, the guys at Gemut are excellent. Take a look through their website, they have a ton of other travel-related information which we have found very useful.
If you have any other questions I’m more than happy to help out!
Happy travels!
Oliver