Renting Car in Venice and returning to Munich airport

You don't need a car to go from Venice to Salzburg. If you want to drive in Bavaria, rent a car in Bavaria. A car is useless in Munich, so rent to do your Bavarian drives.

What exactly do you want to see that requires a car? That is where you start. Let's also be honest in five days, covering that distance, you will not be seeing much, so set realistic expectation as to what you want to see.

The most obvious solution would be to cross the border into Austria from Venice, then rent the car there, and return in Salzburg. That way you are renting and returning in the same country, lowering the fees hopefully.

Even simpler, would be to head right to Salzburg, rent the car, and return to Salzburg for your roaming part of the trip. If you are planning a day or two in Italy on the route, rent and return in Italy, then move to Austria.

The cost of returning a vehicle in another country reflects the fact that it must be returned to the country of origin before it can be rented out again. The drop off fee pays for the driver, fuel, tolls, etc. to make that trip. There’s no easy (or hard) way of getting around it. Your best alternative is a combination of rail and rental.

We have been quoted up to 1000€ to return a rental car to another country. Now we leave it near the border of the country where we picked it up, cross the border by taxi and rent another car in the new country.

Train from Venice to Salzburg. Rent car. Do your thing. Drop the car in Salzburg. Train to Munich.

Problem solved.

As mentioned: take the train - not only for costs.

Background: the main Autobahn axis between Bavaria and this part of Italy is the so called Brenner Autobahn (A 13) which will be maintained and partly rebuilt for the next years resulting in reduced capacities (partly one lane per direction only). Original info by Asfinag (Autobahn operator).

You could either train to Innsbruck, get a car and return in Salzburg OR train to Garmisch, get the car and return in Munich.

I have also looked at trains and picking up a car in Salzburg, but that fee is still very high.

You can avoid that fee by renting in Freilassing, Bavaria (just over the border). There are frequent local buses from Salzburg to Freilassing.

I would rent a car in Villach, drive via Grossglockner high alpine road towards Salzburg and return the car in Salzburg.
Venice - Villach and Salzburg - Munich are easy train rides.

Do yourself a favor. Fly from Venice to Munich. Costs about $130 and takes an hour. Then take the train to Salzburg for 30 Euro. Spend however long you want there. Then go back to Munich and rent your car.

I think some of the folks commenting are confusing Venice and Vienna. The car rental fees are due to Customs and other legal issues with moving cars between the three countries you plan to visit.

good ideas everyone, thank you.

I have a follow up question, regarding trains in Europe. I have taken several before but never got a multiple leg pass. I always got point-2-point tickets. On this trip, 3 of us (2 adults 1 teenager) will likely have these legs:

1) Rome-Florence, 2) Florence-Venice, 3) Venice-Austria (TBD), 4) Salzburg-Munich

With 4 separate legs does some sort of Eurorail pass make sense? It is over a 2 week period.

thank you

You'll have to do the math yourself, but with Trenitalia, and if you buy any tickets in advance for the discounts, I doubt a Eurail pass would come out on top

With a Eurail pass you will have to buy seat reservations for each traveler for everything except Salzburg to Munich, and that can be done with a Bayern Ticket for 52 EUR total.

For the two train trips within Italy, look at the Trenitalia Insieme offer - significant discount for three to five people traveling together:

https://www.trenitalia.com/en/offers/insieme_offer.html

You should create a Trenitalia account, then link a profile for each traveller - that way you can purchase tickets in a single transaction.

For leg #4 check Deutsche Bahn: https://int.bahn.de/en