Renting a car in Edinburgh?

Are you planning on taking trips out of town? Otherwise, do you really need a car? Traffic is bad. Parking is terrible.

Edinburgh has a good bus and tram system.

If you are planning on visiting the major sites, think about the hop on/hop off buses. There are four different routes covering most of the major sites. You can get on and off at any of the stops. The buses run fairly often and have commentary--some live.

I'll give you a tip...get a 48 hour Grand Tour ticket for 22 GBP. Its good on all four of the routes offered. Some people wouldn't think of using them, but I found it convenient to see the major sites.

Thanks. I guess I was thinking of renting a car to go out of town - while in town I was planning to use public transport.

Best place to rent a car is the Airport all the big companies there. I use Arnold Clark for my car hire, they have a place near the airport but not in the same hub as the other companies.Airport easy to get to from city centre by bus or tram in about 30 minutes.
where are you planning to go to , might be able to arrange that by public transport ,just let us know

Unclegus has beaten me to it. Again. ;-)

If you are staying in the City Centre and are looking for day trips out, look for public transport, either rail or bus. It is likely to be more hassle than it is worth to take a car.

Both Unclegus and MC beat me - but I've been away from the forum for a few weeks - - we rented from Arnold Clark 2 years ago, which worked well but only after we'd had our time in and around Edinburgh, and we were heading out to the Highlands and other parts of Scotland. While based in Edinburgh, the bus worked very well for us.

We returned our Europcar rental car at Edinburgh Waverley train station. I would think you could pick-up a rental at the same place! We have used Europcar on multiple UK trips and had no problems ever.

It was wonderfully convenient to the Edinburgh Central Waterloo Place Travelodge where we stayed. An easy walk, a couple of blocks away (we had small, carry-on rolling bags and it was certainly no hardship pulling them to our hotel!). We stayed in Edinburgh for 5 nights.

Does your hotel offer parking to the guests?? Make sure they do before renting a vehicle.

But, as others have said, parking in Edinburgh is not fun!! You'd be better off to use just public transportation/walking in Edinburgh.

We drove to Edinburgh and saw everything we wanted to see in the surrounding areas BEFORE we stayed in the city. Much easier. Then, we returned the car and just "did" Edinburgh, via walking or the bus. Very easy walking town.

If you want to see places in the surrounding area, stay outside the city if you'll have a car.