Have rental car and need to depart from CDG, but afraid to drive in Paris traffic

Where will you be coming from? Is dropping the car there and taking a train a possibility?

Have you checked what other 'suburban' Paris offices your rental car co. has?

The TGV line to the south stops right at CDG. Maybe take the train to/from the south, and only have the car for your regional touring? (Between gas and tolls, it could even be decent, if not better economics.)

We picked up and dropped off in Versailles after trying Paris one time. A little longer process but less stressful. Another trip we did pick up and drop off at the airport. Again, a little longer but less stressful.

South of France is a huge area, so from where will you be driving?
Marseille to Paris is 3 hours by train. It's more than double by car. It doesn't make sense to spend all that time driving when you have high-speed trains going directly to Paris and others directly to CDG.

Marseille to Paris is 3 hours by train. It's more than double by car. It doesn't make sense to spend all that time driving when you have high-speed trains going directly to Paris and others directly to CDG.

This is excellent advice. It also applies to Lyon, Avignon, Nîmes, Dijon, Bordeaux, Tours even. Consider that driving a car on the toll highways costs about 0.20€/km or slightly more these days with tolls and gas. Lyon to Paris is 100€, Marseille to Paris is 160-170€, and so on. This is equivalent to the average cost of 2 train tickets for next month.

Hi from Wisconsin,
You can get to the airport without driving through Paris. Coming from the SE, E, NE, N, or NW is close to rural driving. And once you are near the airport there will signs directing you safely in to the car park for your return.

Put in a location for one of those cardinal directions, for instance Claye-Souilly, and National Car Rental return and follow that path. If I recall correctly all the rentals are returned to the same general area. The sign posts will say car return.

Honestly ten minutes of Google maps and you will find that the rental return is in the middle of the airport area. If you get on that long loop of airport road (using Google that area is shown as grey) and you miss the turn off to the rental return just stay on the loop and get off on your next time around.

In my opinion, It is much easier to return a car there than to pick one up.

wayne inWI

Hi Wayner -
Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, I need to get to CDG from Chartres, which is SW of Paris, essentially on the exact opposite side of Paris from CDG. I explored various routes using Google Maps (one of my favorite travel tools), and I could not find a route which would get me to from Chartres to CDG in less than two and a half hours.