Car rental in Florence - Should we choose airport location or in town near train station?

This is very frequently discussed here, the ztl's and all.

Don't forget the driving permit from AAA you will need along with your license.
You will find lots of information in these previous posts to answer questions that invariably will come up.

https://search.ricksteves.com/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=florence+car+rental&button=

The answer depends on your comfort level with urban driving, in a strange city and likely driving a manual transmission. The other issue is the traffic restrictions zones and the proximity to the car pick up point.

While we did not pick up a car in Florence, we did so in Rome. The pickup location was at the edge of town and we drove out of Rome easily. Florence would not be different. Perhaps you can find a rental location near the edge of town or in a nearby town which is easy to reach.

I have used an agency called. Gemut.com to arrange a rental. They will assist you in locating a car, at a good price, and assist you in finding a location that is suitable.

I would avoid going to the airport as the logistics of renting their are likely to be as challenging as a downtown location.

Driving in Florence is not for the faint of heart. We've always taken a taxi from the train station to the airport to rent a car. Be sure to let the driver know you want to go to the car rental, as it is (as we say in America) off-airport.

You will save time and money renting from the downtown location. In Italy airport locations typically charge a premium so money savings for that plus the cost to get yourself to the airport cost.
I did not think driving out was bad, driving back in probably more challenging and I did not do that, not sure if your plans require you to or not.

We rented from the Europcar office in downtown Florence, address is Via Borgognissanti, 53/55/r, 50123 Firenze, Italy
There is a Hertz rental place on the same block.

The booking was through Auto Europe and from that location the drive out of town post checkout was not difficult, just make sure to ask for directions out and follow them. You really would have to backtrack or turn around to run into a ZTL as they are monitoring cars entering not leaving if that makes sense.

I think you received good advise by the comment that it depends on your comfort with urban driving in the US.
Florence driving seems much more tame than Rome or Naples.

And you really are going to drive down one very easy side street ; you will get your car on Via Borgognissanti, headed left the direction away from town ; follow that road ; a very easy to drive not crowded side street with a few stop signs until the road ends.
Then at the end of the road be funneled to your right with no option of turning the wrong way onto a city highway (the road ends and you are forced to go right) which loops around the city ;
At this point you are now outside of the main ZTL so don't want to enter inside the walled area of town again
you will have to exit off of this mini loop highway to get onto another highway out of town once you do that any city driving is over.

I would definitely do that again and glad we did not rent from the airport location which I had considered for all of the same reasons you are.

The odds of getting a very expensive ticket are high if you rent downtown; all it takes is a moment of confusion and accidentally entering a bus lane or going around the block a couple of times and in 5 minutes you could have 2 or 3 tickets that cost you $60 each from the rental agency 'for providing your information' and then later several hundred Euros in fines. Yes you can avoid this if you are careful and know what you are doing, but the agency doesn't care and so the odds that you get good directions are chancy. I would rent from the airport and not worry about it. Definitely don't try to return a car to the downtown office; odds of erring and incurring tickets are higher coming in.

While Jane is correct you have the potential to rack up the fines, and no one will be sympathetic if you do ; the local office in my experience this Fall gave me a very easy to follow printed map and highlighted for me the route out to the highway.
I used my phone's Waze GPS app which followed the same route the rental office gave me, it is a very common question for them and they explained the route well.

As I mentioned it is one way to go down an easy side street and you are out of the ZTL on the main loop highway.
Of course you could screw up and take a wrong turn and be potentially fined heavily or enter a restricted bus lane, but I think your chances are greater of staying on route than they are going off route.

I drove from Ognissanti once, never again. I go to the airport.

we did this exact thing in September 2010.....picked up our car by the train station and drove out to San Casciano. Then returned it at the end of our stay at the same place.

I wrote in my trip notes that they gave very explicit instructions on getting in and out of town. If you are confident you can follow them, you will have no trouble at all. We plan to do it again when we return this September.

Thanks everyone! I really appreciate all the replies. What a great community! My husband is a confident driver, but I think we might play it safe and use the airport location since this is our fist time.

I'd be more scared to rent at the airport. It's in a temporary location tucked away on Via Palagio degli Spini. Most Florentines would not know where that hell via Palagio degli Spini is.
Exiting Borgo Ognissanti is easy and your really need to be drunk to get a ZTL fine while you exit. Returning it there might be tricky and you need to know the directions, which I have given in numerous previous posts.
If you rent from europcar, they also have a facility on Via Forlanini. Hertz has one on Via del Sansovino. Both are in the city and far from the ZTL, but would not be subject to the airport charges. Returning to these facilities would also be easier than the airport location. If you miss the turn on via Palagio degli Spini, you'd better have a good GPS.