Travel from La Spezia to Lake Como - hire car or train?

You really need to start by looking at a really good map to get the lay of the land. Lake Como is on the Swiss border not too far north of Milan, and Milan's where you would most likely pickup a rental car. Major rental companies tend not to be in smaller cities.
The Dolomites are southeast of the Austrian border or northwest of Venice. Distances can be a little deceiving throughout the region.
I often use GoogleMaps to approximate distances, but they may not route you through smaller cities as much as they route you for the easiest and more efficient routes.
We did drive the 150 miles from Florence to Venice 3 years ago, but it's been a few years since we visited the Dolomites and north of Venice into Austria.

You need a map, and you need to understand that driving on motorways is relatively easy, so La Spezia to Lake Como is not a terrible trip, but driving out of the motorway system is very slow, so again Lake Como to Dolomites is easy as long as you drive the motorway through Verona, but extremely slow if you try any direct route.

Trains are a easy trip from La Spezia to Lake Como, but "Dolomites" are a large area and are not really served by trains. Trains go up to Bolzano, or a side line around Dobbiaco. After that, you need a car or you are stuck with buses.

Hi Aokai20,

I agree, driving in Italy and the area is fairly simple. We are currently sitting in Athens enjoying the sites, but three weeks ago we got a train from Zurich to Lake Como. I hadn't driven in Europe in over 20 years, but we found a Europcar in the town of Como that was close to the train station. We traveled around the lake with great views and spent a few days in Varenna before driving thru the Italian Alps to Slovenia and through the Julian Alps as well! It was quite simple, just be sure to have euros for tolls, they can be numerous but reasonable. In Slovenia, you need to buy a toll sticker at most any gas station, it's good for one week and cost 15 euros. The trick in Europe is to return the car to the country you picked it up, thus we returned our car in Venice, altogether it was just over $200 for 9 days! Plus fuel of course. We then took the train to Trieste and then a bus to Umag in Crotia to pick up another car without too much inconvenience.

Be sure to get a small diesel car if possible, I requested well in advance. We drove around Lake Como for two days with me telling my wife I think the fuel gauge maybe broken, when finally on the third day it moved off of full! Also, contrary to many here in forums, we had little or no trouble with Google maps for navigation. I didn't request GPS but it came with the car they gave us, it worked only in Italy. But we often had maps and GPS working at the same time with very minimal differences between the two!
For a couple of days, we set Google maps to avoid toll roads, that way we saw lots of small towns and villages, but the toll roads are really quite a bit more efficient.

Feel free to write me directly if you have any questions or concerns.

If you decide to rent a car, keep that in mind as you choose yr accommodations in varenna. Some of the apts we looked at offered parking, but it was at some location half a mile away.

From La Spezia to Lake Como, depending on traffic near the Milan tangenziale (Beltway), it is about 4 hour drive (plus pit stops). The drive is nearly all on 4 to 6 lane freeways. From La Spezia you would take the A15 Freeway to Parma then near Parma you take the A1 freeway toward Milan. From Milan then depends if you go to Como branch (western shore) or toward Lecco (eastern shore).

It is not difficult at all, it will be driving on a freeway like in your state, but it is a boring drive on a straight freeway, mostly through the flat Po Valley. It reminds me of the drive through the Central Valley in California on I-5, just greener than arid California.

If you prefer to avoid the boredom of the long drive, you can take the train to Milan, and rent near the station, or, even better, take another train to Como or Lecco and rent there on the lake. Como and Lecco are the only locations on the lake where you will find rental offices (Europcar or Hertz).

Be aware that Varenna has very limited parking. If you intend to visit Lugano and its lake on a day trip, consider staying in Menaggio, on the western shore. Parking is good there and Varenna is just 10 minutes away across the lake by ferry boat.

Travel by train on that route will likely be faster and easier, especially if you use one of the direct (no changes) trains from Monterosso to Milan.

Trains also avoid the issues of having an International Drivers Permit and getting expensive tickets in ZTL (limited traffic) areas.