York Area: car rental or not

I agree with you that you don't need a car if staying in York. The City Council is waging what it terms as a war against the car in the city, using many tools, but including making parking as difficult and expensive as it can.
There is a network of park and ride schemes on the edge of the city centre, with an all electric bus fleet for transfer in.

To Leeds, Scarborough (for the coast), Durham etc there is very good transit.

For Thirsk (for James Herriot) there is good train and bus service.

Half hourly trains to Knaresborough and Harrogate, with frequent bus connections at Harrogate for Ripon.

Yorkshire Coastliner also run double deck buses to Scarborough and Whitby. East Yorkshire run good bus services to points on the coast via the Yorkshire Wolds between Scarborough and Hull.

You will be there on at least one Sunday when there are Dalesbus services deep into the Yorkshire Dales (as far as Hawes), and on a summer Saturday Moorsbus runs far into the North Yorkshire Moors National Park.

If you were wanting to have a car, then as you suggest, it would be more sensible to stay in the countryside, then use the Park and Ride schemes for days in York.

There are 15 parking lots around York. They just don't want crowded streets inside the Walls where you need to have a permit. You might find a place to stay that is walking distance or bus ride into York that has a parking space. You can park at the train station, and walk from there.. I really appreciated having the flexibility of driving our own car in the countryside. It allows you to drive right up to Howard Castle and down to those Seaside Villages and this allows you to stay in a Farmhouse B&B, etc. Liverpool and Chester are both worth a day each. We stayed in Ripon and saw Fountains Abbey. Harwood House in Harrogate is worth seeing, too.

Thanks for the advice. Both options sound like they each have benefits. We had a chat and we've decided to stay in York and depend on transit for our adventure days out. DH will be happy to rent a car in Sweden and get his countryside driving there. I really appreciated the list of towns/services and will start researching the options you mentioned. Thanks again for taking the time to help out.

Just make a list of places you want to see, what time you want to spend there, and scope public transport. Could you avoid renting a car? Sure. Would a car allow you to see a great deal? Yes

I think Yorkshire does qualify as a great place to have a car, lots of small towns on the coast and interior, much faster to reach by car than public transport, especially if you only want to spend a few hours, rather than most of a day. As and example there is another thread going at the moment, listing lesser known Yorkshire places and celebrations. To that I would add Masham, a neat market town, plus a Victorian era brewery with a great tour (Theakston) and a newer well respected brewery, Black Sheep (though I have heard they have had financial problems).

I would probably opt to rent a car for a day, or more, you could certainly stay overnight a place or two, but 8-9 days in York is more than enough, so I would look for some things outside York.

I think too many people look at the question of car or no car as a black and white issue, but it doesn't have to be. You are correct that it would be madness to have a car in York. But if you want to travel around the countryside, there is nothing stopping you from renting a car for a day or two.

Welcome to Sweden! The same is true here, a car is very helpful in some areas but just a headache in other. (Although if you have any further questions about Sweden, you should probably create a new thread in that forum.)

Have a look around this website; Mountain Goat Tours.
They have mini van tours leaving from several different locations in England.

Tours leaving from Manchester:
https://www.mountain-goat.com/Lake-District/Manchester
See the Lake District or North Wales.

Tours leaving from York:
https://www.mountain-goat.com/Lake-District/York
https://www.mountain-goat.com/Yorkshire

Perhaps leave the driving to them instead of renting a car? The person who would be driving your car can instead be enjoying the scenery and taking photos instead of staring at the road or a map.

I recommend the Minster Hotel, walking distance to all the major sights, including York Minster.
Good breakfast, clean comfy rooms.
http://www.yorkminsterhotel.co.uk/
The medieval center of York is very compact and you won't need a car to travel the city streets. Walking is preferable and you will see more that way. Don't miss seeing the street known as The Shambles.
If you arrive by train, it's an easy walk across the bridge and into the downtown area from the train station.

For your day trip to Durham, simply hop on the train and hop off at Durham. It's walking distance to Durham Cathedral. Then it's a quick and easy return train ride back to York.

We stayed in the Minster Hotel in York, which had parking for us. Also, it is located walking distance from the city center.

Castle Howard is worth a visit, not too far from York. We loved Durham as well, but it is a bit far.

York to Durham is 45 minutes by train- so not sure how that is deemed to be "a bit far" (by car York to Durham is 90 minutes)

I'm following this discussion because I have a similar dilemma. What's stumping me is where to rent a car that isn't in the city centre or at an airport. We will be arriving in York by train from Edinburgh, and at some point would like to get a car to explore. In a perfect world we would return it to Leeds or Manchester. I like the idea of obtaining/leaving the car outside of York, but I haven't been able to connect the dots of getting from the station or our York hotel to wherever the car is! I'm also willing to take a train to some other location and start the driving trip from there. Can anyone help?

rsbrandt99,
In early May, we will go from London to York by train. Arnold Clark car rentals has train station pick up to shuttle us to their car rental location (not sure which of their locations) . We are not going into York, this time, and will be headed to Yorkshire for 6 days. We heard about the car rental company on this forum, and we were happy with their quote.
Cheryl

There’s an enterprise car rental at the back of the station near the railway museum

In addition to the public transit connections mentioned in an earlier post there are several companies you can find online that run day tours from York. If you go to Thirsk the bus ends in the Thirsk town square maybe 100 yards from the museum entrance, the train station is a mile or so away.