Driving or public trans?

For anyone to really come to a sensible thought on this, it would be helpful if you listed where you plan to go.

I am in the planning stages now for Portugal, 2 weeks, end of February, first part of March. We likely will use a car for part of the trip, our time may be more limited than yours, but here is what I am seeing.

Nearly all of the towns mentioned in the Rick Steves book (and most others) seem to be easily reachable by bus or train, but a car, for us, will allow more efficient travel some decision points for us:

• We will be stopping in Evora, but will spend the night in Monsaraz before heading to the Algarve, probably not doable by public transport, or at least without having to add a day.
• In the Algarve, we are staying 3 nights in Loule. This will coincide with Carnival, enjoying that each night, but allow us to explore the coast from Loule.
• After that, we are heading North, the car will allow us to hit smaller towns in Central Portugal, then to explore the Duoro valley a little bit. in the time we have ~4 Days for that segment, we would have to pick 1 or 2 stops if using Public Transport as opposed to adding in another quick stop or two, or driving through the smaller towns.

Overall, we will have the car for about a week of the two. It does not appear that we will have an added charge for picking up in Lisbon or Evora and dropping off in Porto. Still working out insurance, there are Tolls, but most rentals make the electronic toll pass available, and the general response from others on here is that driving in Portugal is pretty stress free.

Might add that I rarely rent a car in Europe, Ireland and rural UK were the exceptions, but it does seem to make sense for this trip. If I had more time and was looking to spend larger blocks of time in a number of spots, then I would probably opt for public transport though. We are doing Lisbon and Porto at the beginning and end of the trip to avoid having a car for those segments.

I always hire a car when in Portugal, but I don’t stay in cities. Driving there is easy, even though to me it’s on the wrong side of the road and (unless you are travelling in July or August) it’s cheap.

Where do you want to visit? Some places are difficult without a car, but if you just want to see Lisbon and Porto, you don’t need a car.

Thanks Jennifer and Paul for your advice! Really appreciate you two taking the time to respond, even though I'm apparently way off base according to Paul of the Frozen North.

As we are in the extremely early stages of planning, Paul of the Frozen North, we have not yet determined an itinerary. We are merely looking at Rick's guide online as we have not bought our books yet. Thanks for being so kind with your insult. I'll try to find my sense if I ever ask this forum a question again.

We have a trip planned for May 2020- 24 nights.
We will fly into Lisbon, out of Porto and plan to rent a car for the middle 2 weeks of trip- picking up in Lisbon as we leave there, dropping off in Porto when we arrive there. This will allow us to visit more small towns/locations- although almost all of our trip could be done by public transpo. We find it easier to have our own car- just have to make sure our lodgings have decent, accessible parking! We never drive in big cities, just rent a car strategically. Once you have an itinerary in mind you can pinpoint where a car might be better than public transpo.
We have driven in Italy, France, UK, Ireland, Germany so we are comfortable with this and from what I understand driving is quite easy in Portugal.

There is a trip report here written by Priscilla who did a long trip all with public transportation you might find it helpful:
Starts here- there are 4 installments
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/portugal-our-trip-in-progress

We always use AutoEurope.com for our rentals- they are a US based consolidator with excellent customer service and usually the best rates. They can be very helpful!

Hi ksteele,

We've done 2 trips to Portugal, once with renting a car for part of the trip, the other strictly public transport. I preferred the flexibility of having the car. The direct trains between Lisbon, Coimbra and Porto are great and inexpensive. But when we started travelling around to Tavira and some smaller towns we spent a lot of time getting from A to B. Its still not a bad way to see the country, but I felt we missed seeing a few places because of it.
So my suggestion is a bit of both, unless you decide to stick to the main cities. We picked up the car as we left the Lisbon area, and dropped it at the airport. You don't need it while in Lisbon or Porto, public transport is great.

The only other piece I'd mention is that if you don't drive standard ( manual) it can get pricey. My brother had a lot of trouble finding an automatic a few years ago in the summer. We always rent a standard and had no troubles.

I don’t find it pricey at all
We have an automatic 4 door compact for 14 days Europcar thru AutoEurope
Pick up in Lisbon
Drop in Porto
$498
Basic insurance as our AmEx covers us

We recently spent about $450 for a 2 week rental in California and that was with every discount I could find/use

Christine H
Glad to hear it! It was my brother who had troubles, who knows, maybe he left it pretty late to book and it was summer!

I did a short trip to Portugal last May - flew into Lisbon and out of Porto, nine nights total, and I took trains and buses all the way. I am used to public transportation and prefer trains when I visit Europe. I have driven on several occasions on Europe when it made sense (Slovenia and Croatia mostly), but I try to avoid driving unless it makes things much easier.

On my trip, I day tripped from Lisbon to Sintra and to Cascais by train, took the train north to Coimbra (stop/detour in Tomar for a few hours), bus day trip from Coimbra to Nazare (which I loved), and then the train on to Porto. It all worked fine. A car would have given me more flexibility to stop in the small towns, but given my limited itinerary it didn't really matter.

Portugal's train and bus system is OK, not as good as Italy's train system but workable. It's a little odd that the trains don't really go directly to the center of the big cities. To get from the center of Lisbon to the center of Porto, for example, several changes are required. Not the end of the world but more of a hassle than other places I've visited.

I spent 3+ weeks in Portugal this year in May-June. I had a car for 10 days and used trains for the rest. My decision to rent a car was based on my itinerary - some places required a car, other places it was just easier/more efficient to have a car.

I've driven in Sicily, Amalfi Coast, Andalucia, and parts of France. The roads in eastern Portugal were more challenging that any of the others, and my Garmin wasn't always reliable.

Hi from Wisconsin,
Don't drive or attempt to park in Lisbon. I have rented cars in Europe for decades and experience dictates that driving in the City of London, or central Paris...Lisbon...Budapest...only if you absolutely need to.

The rest of the country is mostly a breeze. Well finding the apartment we had rented in Viseu was a trip in itself. The larger the city the more difficult but where isn't that true. Also true most everywhere in Europe, once you get off the four lane highways the traffic speed drops dramatically on the two lane roads. But that is where you actually see things.

And we got an under $10/day rental in Portugal (AutoEurope consolidators). Picked it yup when we left Lisbon to visit other parts of the country, dropped it off before spending the last days back in Lisbon.

wayne iNWI