Rental Car - GPS

Another point of view. I would never rent a car with GPS that I did not know how to operate, especially in a foreign country. When I went to Italy I brought my own GPS preloaded with a map of Italy. You do not want to be on strange roads, trying to navigate where you do not know the language and at the same time deal with a GPS unit you are not completely familiar with. With your own GPS you can load the GPS in the comfort of home with the points and places you want to go. If you already have your hotel reservations you can even put them into the GPS.

GPS rental is usually a bad proposition. If they rely on external units, they might be out of stock at the office.

More and more cars have embedded navigation systems in their consoles, which will be active regardless of your payment.

GPS units are horribly expensive for rental. My suggestion: an offline GPS navigation app, a good one (and paid) like TomTom, that you bring along your smartphone together with a suction cup.

I would bring my own gps. Cheaper to purchase at home with Europe maps than to rent and you will know how to use it.

I know of someone who rented a car with a gps and the language was not English. Could not figure out how to change it for the whole trip.

Enjoy your trip.

Some thoughts.....

In Spain we often rented cars and enjoyed success with internal and external gps systems. Over the years the systems technology has become more intuitive = easier and more accurate to utilize.

That said, no matter how good the system attempting to use gps in an old town district (like Seville) is quite disfunctional as you are driving in tight quarters with a lot of distractions and often small unfamiliar signs to follow.

We recommend going to the web site Via Michelin to plan your trip

https://www.viamichelin.com/

And most important we recommend using the Google Earth Street View to follow the path of the journey you mapped using via michelin. By doing so you can become familiar with "markers" defining key intersections/turns to have an idea of where you are heading. For example if you need to exit a highway you can view what the buildings look like at the departure point so you have a visual aide to recognize you are in the right place. Time spent doing this exercise enhances your driving confidence and reduces the time staring at the gps trying to confirm you are at the right place. Yep, the gps voice will be talking to you about where you should turn, but I like the affirmation of seeing a recognizable landmark.

We preferre renting a hatchback so the lid could hide the view to what is in the rear of the hatchback. We also carried a single black bed sheet to cover items placed in the second row passenger seat.

Depending upon the time of year items kept in a car can quickly melt (angry wife = expensive melted cosmetics). We rented cars to take the time to explore getting off the beaten path, but if your intent is to go from point A to B the bus and train service provides a less stressful experience.

BTW..... please comply with Spanish law and obtain an International Drivers Permit which you can get for $20 and a passport type photo from AAA. Essentially this is a rehash of your drivers license blended with your passport info, but it is legally required by Spanish law. Most important be aware many traffic fines are due in cash and on the spot of where the infraction occurs.

We (my older parents and I) recently returned from a trip that included a car rental in northern Spain and France. After multiple trips to Europe using only our GPS (now rather elderly) that we bring from home, I experimented with offline maps. I primarily used maps.me, which I set up ahead of time with all of our lodging and restaurants, and then with all sorts of restaurant and other possibilities.

I felt that using my smartphone with the data turned off, using the maps offline, worked about as well as the GPS. the GPS provided more verbal instructions (we have a tom tom), but the imagery on maps.me was better, in terms of being able to easily scale out to see a further-range view.

We also had paper maps, because sometimes they're just better (especially in combination with electronic technology). And Michelin maps note, in green, the prettier roads.

Yes, in cities or towns with narrow streets, sometimes the tracking of either smartphone or GPS lagged a lit. That's why it's preferable to have a navigator who's not also the driver, to help spot street signs.

Brought my own GPS on my current trip. Works well getting in and out of cities. It doesn't pronounce streets properly, so you visually follow the route. Also, street signs in cities are not easy to see or find as you're driving. Outside the city, I mute mine since the roads are marked fairly well. Don't depend exclusively on the GPS in cities since it doesn't always know how to get you to you destination and may take you in circles. Do some research on where you're going and which roads you'll be travelling, so when the GPS says to turn onto an unpaved road, you'll know it's wrong. Take a paper map as backup. For places I though might be tricky, I wrote the exit number down, or what the sigh said, to ensure I got off the roads where I wanted to, not where the GPS wanted me to.

Thank you for all the tips. Sounds like our best bet is to bring our own GPS and download the Spain maps in advance (along with my bundle of paper maps).

I've booked marked our AirBnB addresses on Google chrome maps but I will follow great advice here and make sure to print up those maps (as well as any other key areas) on a detailed street level for my travel folder.

As I think about it, I will confirm with my AirBnB host in Granada the specific address of the nearest parking garage (she said it's a short walk) so I can map that as well.

PS My husband has his international license. Thank you for the tips!

I brought my Garmin GPS to Spain, and bought the Spain map for it on eBay for ~$30. Worked perfectly driving outside of the cities from one white village to another. I made it a point not driving through a city or a village. The only exception was in Ronda where I had to reach my hotel. A hair raising experience through the narrow winding streets and the numerous roundabouts.

I also brought along this for charging while on the road.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HHT9FL2?psc=1

Thanks for the charger tip - just ordered it :-)
Great tips about using street view - much appreciated.
We're going to download Spain maps and bring our Garmin GPS.
Many thanks!
Julie

If you order the Spain map on eBay, make sure that it is compatible with your specific Garmin GPS model.

I've booked marked our AirBnB addresses on Google chrome maps but I will follow great advice here and make sure to print up those maps (as well as any other key areas) on a detailed street level for my travel folder.

I used to do that. For walking, I now make custom offline maps for my phone and tablet which hold all the information. Gone paperless, almost.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/tech-tips/maps-me-is-a-great-offline-map-program-for-iphones-and-android

Adding a humorous memory of our visit to Granada. We had a rental car for this portion of the trip. I had read that that streets in Granada were very confusing and difficult, so I carefully (and this was about five years ago, so map technology wasn't quite as good as it is now) located on the map several parking lots that were close to the highway exit that I knew we would be taking. Well, neither the GPS nor my paper maps had taken into consideration the construction work they were doing on nearby streets, that totally ruined all my planning. That being said, we were able to get ourselves to the street with the paid parking garage and get the car parked for the duration of our stay in Granada!

Here's a last caution on your Garmin. We always take our Garmin and it has worked fine in the past. I downloaded the latest software online two weeks before we left. We just got back from a trip to Portugal after renting our car in Madrid. We tried to use our Garmin GPS but it didn't want to work. This was the first time that had happened. We used my iPhone and it worked ok. After getting home, I contacted Garmin's support people and found out they had changed the Europe map from one covering all of Europe to a North map and a South Europe map. In the past I have had two maps to download, 1) North American & 2) Europe. I downloaded the new South Europe and now have three maps, 1) North American 2) North Europe & South Europe. Be sure to check out what maps you have downloaded. I'm pretty sure this will work for our trip to Southern Spain in October.