Car rental Charles de Gaul airport Paris?

More often than not, we rent at the airport. Despite the fact that it's usually a bit more expensive, it saves the time and expense of getting to another location; and you avoid the hassle of navigating out of urban mazes. Also, airports generally have quick and easy connections to major highways. We returned a car to CDG, and my memory is a bit fuzzy; but, I believe, the latter is true. I don't recall the driving to be especially difficult. If you are leaving immediately, I can't imagine why you would do anything else. As is true for many major cities, the airport is well out of town; and there is a ring road, the Peripherique, which allows you to connect to highways in all directions without going through the city.

Driving around CDG is not much worse than driving around any other major airport. One advantage to what you are doing is that you arrive, find the rental desk, they take you to your car, you put your bags in the car and you are ready to go. I recommend that you take a GPS with a European map card with you. Before you drive away with the car save the rental return location on the GPS and it will bring you back with very little pain. I assume you are making a rental reservation now to pick the car up at CDG, renting as a walk up anywhere in Europe will be much more expensive. Don't forget some good paper maps to supplement the GPS. If you will be there 3 weeks or more, you should look into a lease.

It makes perfect sense. You'll pay a slight premium to pick up at the airport but you'll already be on you way to Alsace and able to get to the Autoroutes immediately. If you're not planning to stay in Paris first, it's the way to go.

Getting to Alsace won't involve the Peripherique. You can also avoid it heading to Burgundy if you use the outer ring/s. It wouldn't make a lick of sense to get the car anywhere but at the airport.

I'm not sure why you think it's "crazy" to rent at the airport; as everyone else is saying, since you are not going to Paris itself, it's the most sensible option, and anything else would be "crazier." Other than driving near the airport, what were your concerns?

Yes just wondering how bad traffic is on the periphery of the city. Doesn't sound that bad. Thanks all!