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Renting a car on the Silver Coast

Posted by (USA) on

I'm considering renting a car in Leiria and returning it a week or so later in Caldas da Rainha. It would offer me the ability to visit many smaller towns without worrying about train and bus schedules, but I'd want to avoid toll roads since that will be just one more thing to stress about. Is that realistic? I don't mind driving on smaller roads, but also want to use my time wisely. Is it possible to rent a car with the toll thing on it, so I could just pay all the tolls to the rental agency when I turn the car in? I didn't take any toll roads when I drove in France. I did use toll roads in Italy and managed to get into the correct lines, but it was rather stressful, so I don't relish the idea of doing it again.

Thanks for any input you can offer!

Posted by
703 posts

In case anyone else was ever wondering about this, I just talked with a friend who lives in central Portugal. She seemed to think I'll have no issues since they've apparently stopped charging for some roads in the central area that used to be toll roads. Of course, the main road from Lisbon to Porto is a toll road, but the smaller ones that I'll use should be toll free, so that's good to know. :)

Posted by
7496 posts

As long as you can rent and return in the towns you want to you should be able to bypass any tolls. In 2023 over a few days we drove between Tomar and Óbidos on mostly toll free highways. That included to Fátima, Batalha, Nazaré, Alcobaca, and Conimbrga.

We had plenty of time on our trip and drove back roads at times to avoid a few tolls. If driving on the rural roads driving will be slow since you will enter and exit many small villages. When entering villages the speed limit drops to 30kph/18mph. There are plenty of other speed limit changes for seemingly no reason, so pay attention and watch for the changes.

We rented our vehicle in Spain so I don’t know how it works with tolls for a Portugal rented vehicle. In Portugal, some tolls are all electronically charged while for others you still need to get the paper ticket when getting on the road. The link has information on the different type toll roads in Portugal.

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