Renting a car for the Cotswolds/best place to stay

Since you will be in Oxford, why not rent one on your way out? I hear that driving in Oxford is a pain.... but maybe if you get it and leave, it won't be so bad. I booked one from Oxford using autoeurope, it was a little over $500 usd for the week for an automatic. Car rentals are closed on Sunday, or at least the ones I have looked at are, so plan to rent and drop off on any other day of the week.

I have looked at car rentals in the Cotswolds and Oxford is your best bet for convenience.

Chipping Campden is a nice town although there isn’t not much to do there. Since you’re using it as a base for day trips, you should enjoy it. For the rental car, specify an automatic when you make your reservation. A manual is standard so if you just show up, there’s a good chance there wouldn’t be one available, especially since it probably isn’t a large pick-up location.

We stayed in Chipping Campden at the Volunteer Inn. It has a nice pub and Indian Restaurant.

I agree that Chipping Campden is a good base. We stayed at a B & B, but you might find a 'character cottage' through Airbnb or Homeaway.

There are a lot of cottages on Homeaway and VRBO. I find their listing information more useful than AirBnB, although often listed on both. Suggest you get on this right away as Sept is still a busy month and they will be booking up. We found a very nice cottage in Mickelton, a couple of miles from Chipping Camden. There is a great gastro pub there, too. Read all those reviews carefully and critically.

Concur with the recommendations to get your car in Oxford. I am not aware of any car rental agency in the Cotswolds and, besides, getting to Chipping Camden by public transportation is not easy - train/bus combo, I think. We drove from Heathrow with no problem. Do use GPS or google maps on your phone. The roads in the Cotswolds are confusing.

Enjoy!

You are correct to rent a car! We took the train to Chipping Campden. Or so we thought-- actually needed to hire a car to get us from the station to our hotel in town. Taking the bus around from village to village is ridiculous-- long waits, and sometimes it never comes.

Why not stay at the Badgers Hall. The best B&B I've ever enjoyed. Husband is an exceptional cook (think of the breakfast.) And afternoon tea is included with the room. These historic rooms are actually comfortable.
https://badgershall.com

See my photo gallery for the tea, breakfast, and rooms. We stayed in two of them.
https://cleob.smugmug.com/Travel/England-2010/i-Rf5vvgH

Best regards for an amazing trip. Such a lovely area!

Rick Steves has a great video on the Cotswolds that you can find on this website.

You want an automatic, understandably, so do I when I (rarely these days) drive in the UK.
My experience renting in that part of the UK is that you probably won't get an automatic if all you do is check the box on the online rental form, like you would do some places.
When I went to the Cotswolds, I was in Bath first so rented the car there. But wherever you rent it, you will want to call the office you're going to rent from, not the 1-800 number for the rental company, and talk to someone who works there and make sure they understand that you're from a right side driving country and you really, really need an automatic.
When I did this, the Bath rental company (one of the majors) actually had to, and did, order an automatic new from the factory which arrived the day before I rented it, it had 2 km on it. Now that's customer service.

But my point is: I realized that morning that if I'd just assumed that it's like here and requested an automatic when I rented the car online and that I'd get it--well, I wouldn't have gotten one. 99.8% of their customers are satisfied with a manual and they probably don't have automatics on the lot when you show up. Not good, since it is extra stress and possibly a safety issue

Hello Kent, We will be staying in Bath in June and we would like to arrange to rent an automatic car there for the rest of our journey. Please may I ask which rental company (and location) you spoke with, and used that was so helpful to you? Did you drop it off in a different city? We would like to drop ours off in London. Thanks so much!

Hi Love2travel: I don't have any records left now from that trip, which was a while back, I'd look it up if I did. Iit was either National or Enterprise in Bath, not at the train station, they were located on the outskirts of town, near the river, maybe Lower Bristol Rd but I'm not sure.

I'm going to look back at my posts here and see if I posted the name at the time. I'll get back to you here if I can positively identify the company. One of the majors.
The rental agent I had the morning I rented it, he personally had gone to the train station the afternoon before, to pick the car up from the train station where it came in new from the factory. Had only 2 km on the odometer. He was pretty proud of what they'd done, and I gave them a strong recommendation on TripAdvisor (if we even had TripAdvisor back then).

Epilogue: I tried to find any posts here I would have made at the time but couldn't find anything. It was either National or Enterprise, look back at my 1st paragraph above.

Another thing: At that time, I hadn't driven on the left for 20 years in Asia, so I was nervous about it and deliberately picked a rental pickup location that was on the outskirts of Bath instead of picking it up at the train station car rental places where I'd immediately be immersed in traffic. Worked out well, the location was on the outskirts of Bath with little traffic, and I drove around in the country for 30 minutes. Then we took off for the Cotswolds, and when I finally got that car to the lodging that night, I got out and kissed the ground that I got it there in one piece.

I've taken the trains ever since in England, mostly been in London, and only go where the trains go.
But to explore the Cotswolds, you gotta have a car.

Hello Kent, Thank you SO much for hunting through your past posts to try to find the information about your car rental in Bath. I appreciated your mention of renting from an agency on the edge of town. We will be staying in the historic center of Bath but perhaps we can see if there is a bus route that gets us to an agency on the outskirts of town. If nothing else a taxi will do. This will be our first trip to England. My husband and I are in our early 60's and I wanted to travel the English countryside before we get any older! Our travel per day should be relatively short so I hope that we can get accustomed to it and that it won't be too stressful. We will probably arrange for GPS, but how was the signage in the Cotswolds? Was it hard to find where you wanted to go? Any other recommendations for driving there? (Any driving my husband has done has been on the continent, not England.) Thanks so much!

@Love 2 Travel now that you’ve hitchhiked the original post I’ll answer your question about signage and driving in the Cotswolds.

Before you go buy an old fashioned map. Research your routes. Make note of the names of towns in route to your destination. Signage is fine but it helps to know the towns near where you are trying to get to. Use the GPS as well.

Got my drivers liscence when LBJ was President. Have driven in the U.K. and Ireland solo more than once. You’ll need to get used to roundabouts.

Safe travels.

Janet, a friend and I did this same thing a few years ago. We flew into London where we spent a couple of days. Then, we took the train to Oxford where we picked up our rental care (automatic). The car rental agency was very close to the highway so we did not have to drive in Oxford traffic. We rented a lovely cottage in Blockley and just loved it. We did day trips from there everyday and found the location perfect. I found the cottage on line just by Googling. It was a perfect trip! Have fun with your friends.

We're renting an automatic at Heathrow for our drive around Great Britain this summer. With driving on the left, I wouldn't feel safe having to shift gears with my left. hand.

Several years ago we stayed at the Old Bakehouse in Chipping Campden. I see it's still getting great reviews. Zoe was delightful, the breakfasts were lovely, and the house is gorgeous. The rooms are small (which is authentic) but fine. The three of you would be the only guests since there are only two rooms. If we were headed to the Cotswolds, that's where we would stay.