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Renting a Car

Staying in Lisbon (4 days) then heading up to Nazare (3 days) as our base for a few days. Want to visit Alcobaca, Fatima and Batalha. Next stops will be Douro Valley and last stop to Porto where we will be flying out to Barcelona. It has been recommended that renting a car outside of Lisbon will be best on this portion of our trip (from Lisbon-Nazare-Douro Valley-Porto) but don't know where outside of Lisbon to look for a car rental.
Does anyone have tips on: 1. renting a car, 2. suggestions for car rental companies and 3. one way car drop offs?

Thank you

Posted by
362 posts

We rented at Lisbon airport from Europcar but lots of agencies represented. Easy to get out of town with gps.

Posted by
11052 posts

We picked up our car at Lisbon airport and dropped it off atthe Porto airport.
Easy. We always book through AutoEurope.com

Posted by
92 posts

Hi there, pardon me if I budge in on this question! We too are renting a car in May and have always rented from autoeurope but never had to do a one way. What was the drop off fee for picking up in one city and dropping off in another? We will be flying into Faro and out of Porto. Thanks!

Posted by
10 posts

Hi Lorierae,
Welcome to the. rent a car topic. Good question regarding and fees with one way drop offs.
Thanks for asking this helps me also!

Posted by
1654 posts

I picked up a car in Coimbra on my trip before moving here and it worked great. It’s a bit of a drive to Nazaré but the traffic is easy. And, the train from Lisbon to Coimbra is easy and cheap.

After living here for three plus years, I still would not pick up a car at the Lisbon airport.

Another option would be here in Cascais. There is a Europcar office very close to the train station. And, the trains from Lisbon couldn’t be easier. But, driving out of Cascais would be busier than driving out of Coimbra.

Autoeurope is the way to go for car rentals and they don’t charge one way drop off fees here like they do in the States. Autoeurope uses Europcar here in Portugal.

Posted by
15560 posts

I'm also renting a car, in May. I started with Autoeurope, then looked at Europcar directly since I haven't had any experience in Europe with other companies that were cheaper on Autoeurope.

Europcar doesn't list the drop-off charge separately, so it's a little time-consuming to figure it out, putting in different options. So far I haven't seen any extra charges for pick-up or drop-off at an airport, but there is a one-way drop-off charge that varies. One set of dates I looked at had Lisbon-Porto $104 more than Lisbon-Lison, but only $70 more than Porto-Lisbon. I'm looking at a small

In the past, I've booked directly with Autoeurope (once got Hertz, once Europcar) and directly with Europcar. All went smoothly. You do have to prepay with Autoeurope, but my experience is that if you cancel, they credit your credit card within 2-3 days.

Posted by
31 posts

Is it very costly to rent a car (gas, tolls, etc) we are also looking to rent one for Porto to make our way down to Lisbon so we can stop in places along the way. This seemed to make the most sense because we will have luggage and wouldn’t want to do day trips with our bags. Thanks!

Posted by
3 posts

Do you need an International Driving Permit to rent a car in Portugal?