car driving in Portugal

All cars drive in the right lane like North America with the driver sitting on the left.

A car facing Northbound will have the steering wheel on the West side of the car and will drive northbound on the East side of the roadways centerline

If you are familiar with how it is done in the Americas, it is like that.

You question answered, I will add some other basics:

• Most rentals will be Manual transmissions (Stick), higher end models may be automatic, if you really need automatic, reserve well ahead.
• Rules of the road are mostly the same. Good common sense will get you around without problems.
• Paying the extra for a Toll Pass will save money if you will be doing much driving North and South, however even without much driving, it is worth the ease of use and freedom from worry.
• Roads are actually in really good condition, modern freeway type roads, most are not busy or crowded by any measure.
• We typically do not rent a car, but for Portugal it was a good decision, glad we did, allowed us to see much more in fewer days, saw things we would not have by Public transport. If you were going fewer places, then maybe it would not make sense, as Public transport is great, and if you are only looking at Porto and Lisbon, then no car needed, but it was great for us.

Driving in southern Portugal last fall was a pleasure for me because it is just like in the states—-left hand drive and in the right lane. One major difference from California is that there are lots of roundabouts or traffic circles. It took a bit to feel comfortable with them because at times there was quite a lot of traffic. The highways are very well-paved and signed. Would definitely rent a car again in this lovely country.

I had a car for 10 days in Portugal just a year ago. Driving on the toll roads is easy, but as someone said, a toll reader is well worth the money, since you will almost certainly use them a lot. I would not want to have a car Lisbon or Porto - lots of one-way streets, trolley cars, hills, and traffic all make it miserable. You should also have GPS, a decent map, and lots of patience. I used Garmin and sometimes it was completely wrong and sometimes just sent me on alternate routes that ended up being bad. Others had similar experiences. If you aren't driving on the toll roads, expect your travel time to be at least 25% and often as much as 50% more than what GPS or an app like google maps says. Almost all the roads I drove on were narrow and and without shoulders. Locals are familiar with the roads and are comfortable driving at the speed limits, I never was except on straight stretches (not very many of those) when there was no oncoming traffic.

Driving around Portugal for two weeks was easy, no problems at all. Picked car up leaving Lisbon, dropped it off before entering Porto.

The rules of the road are in some cases very different and you need to learn the road signs. Otherwise you can get an unpleasant surprise.

I always print a copy of European Road signs and tape it to the dashboard while driving over there. There is always one I don’t remember so this helps.

What a great and simple idea, Suki. Especially if driving solo. :)