GPS in rental car

Thank you all for your help.

Hi again Charity.. It sounds as if you all are making the same trip my husband and I made.. I just emailed you about Venice hotels. We flew into Venice, stayed at the Campiello the picked up a rental car there- At the Piazza Roma( took the boat there), and drove down to a wonderful castle on the border of Tuscany and Umbria. We rented ahead of time thru EuropCar . We did not ask for a GPS system, but one came on our mid-sized car and we did not pay extra. The GPS system was wonderful- allowing us to go places we would never have been able to get to.It was , however, in Italian; but, at the castle we stayed at a couple from the Netherlands showed us how to put it into English and to program it. It was great . You could program it to go somewhere the fastest way or the most scenic way, etc.It had a remote, and when you got to you destination you had to hit return trip and it took you back. Too neat. If we did that again we would ask for one even if we had to pay extra and ask that it..

be put into English. I would specify that when reserving the car and , of course, always rent from the U. S. because it is cheaper. It is expensive to rent a car in Italy because you must get theft insurance and all the CDW and super CDW but it is well worth it. We drove all over Tuscany and Umbria and then dropped the car in La Spezia and took the train to Vernazza. Without the GPS we would never have found the car place in La Spezia because it is a big port. Write if you need anything Jane

It depends on the car. We rented once in Italy (from Sixt) and because the car was a Mercedes B Class (since there were four of us and we wanted automatic) their GPS had like four language options, so English was no problem. However, in France, the Citroen we ended up with only had GPS in French, but luckily my parents knew enough French that it was not a problem.

Charity, we always rent from Autoeurope (they have the best rates). They have a 1 800 number, that you can use and ask questions. Call them and ask if you can change the program in the cars in Italy to English. And you could call the other rental agencys also, on their 1 800 lines.

When i was looking at buying a GPS for our last trip, the only brand that I could find loaded with the program for Europe was the "Tom Tom". All the others required that you buy a separate European package, that was not cheap.

The TomTom 910 model has western Europe as well as the U.S. and Canada loaded to its 20 gb hard drive. We took this model with us and it worked just great.

GPS in a car is wonderful! You can experiment by going to a local car rental, play dumb, and ask to look at a GPS. It comes in about 12 languages! There is a "dummy card" with basic directions on how to use. I have read some rentals in Italy come with GPS and others you rent the GPS ahead, it arrives to you in USA, use it on tour, and then return when home. We go in October and plan on GPS...nothing like good ol' technology. (What in the world did we do 25+ yrs ago when we traveled? We used Europe on $20/day and Let's Go Europe! Now we have GPS and the graffiti wall! Love it!)

Hi Charity -it's me again. I just wanted to let you know about our car that had a GPS system. We Had our AAA travel agent get is the car and she got it thru AutoEurope- it is a consolidator that gets you the best prices. Then the name of the place in Venice was EuropCar- I thought there was two names very close to each other. Our car was a Volvo Wagon with the GPS. It was pretty big, but held all our luggage and for a great price. Just wanted to clear up the 2 names. Jane