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Rental cars: pick up in one country, drop off in another

Posted by (san francisco) on

Have just about finished planning our 25th anniversary trip to Europe. Fly into Zurich, train to Paris (3 nights in an apartment), fly to rome (4 nights in an apartment) pick up rental car in Rome and drive to a villa for 7 nights in Tuscany (Radicondoli, west of Siena), then drive back up to Zurich over the course of a few days. So, this means we will be picking up the rental car in Rome, and dropping it off in Zurich, for a total of about 10 days.

Of course this is pretty expensive, so am wondering if anyone has any ideas about doing it as economically as possible? I was a bit shocked at the $1000+ price tag!

Thanks for any help!

Posted by
6788 posts

Yep, Steve's right. I've done that many times (drop the car on one side of the border, take a train or bus to the nearest town on the other side, pick up a different rental car there). Save big bucks/enormous euros.

Posted by
12172 posts

Steve is right. The best way to keep the cost down is to keep it to one country. I'm looking at a Scandinavian trip. I considered renting a car in Copenhagen to drive to Berlin (or vice versa) at either the start or the finish of the trip.

Nine days in two countries cost over $200 per day.

If I train to Flensburg then pick up a car for nine days, the cost is under $50 per day.

I've leased before and got a great deal even with pick up and drop off charges (both outside of France, where it's free) but that isn't available until you have the car for at least 17 days.

Posted by
41 posts

Geez....can't believe I didn't think of that ! :)

We will be staying 2 days in Como at a B&B, so will turn it in at the train station there and just take the train to Zurich....about 3 hours!

Thanks so much for your help!

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