Hi, We will be newbie travelers, so we have a lot of questions! My mom, son and I will land in Paris and our eventual destination is Krakow to find distant cousins. We would like to spend about a week in wine country on our way overi.e. Champagne and Burgundy. I have become convinced that with many of the side trips we want to take that public transit won't work. Does it make more sense to just rent a car from Paris? We could take the train to Dijon, but with three of us, it would be $115. Is it cheaper to rent from a big city? Would it make more sense to rent in a small town? We are middle class, and this is a life-capping trip for my mom to return to the Old Country in Slovakia. We want to be frugal, but still experience everything that we can. I had apparently believed in some fairytale that we would be able to do everything that we want via public transit. Now I see that that may not be the case in remote areas (the fun places!) Any advice on a car would be greatly appreciated. Best, Renee
Posted by
Pensacola
9110 posts
Actually, it's usually cheaper to rent at the airport (even if there's an airport fee involved). A big airport is better than a big city, which is better than a smaller city, which is better than a small town - - even without considering the cost to get to Dijon, for example, by train. Continuing with Dijon as an example, you're looking at about twenty-five bucks in road tolls and around fourty in gas for a small car to drive from Paris to Dijon. Try to squish all your car use into one segment since a longer-term rental is much less per day than a bunch of short-term ones. In larger cities (Paris) you need to factor in roughly twenty-five euros per day for parking. If you take the car to Poland, get it back to France to turn it in or you'll pay a huge second-country drop-off fee. Road time from Dijon to Krakow is roughly fifteen hours, you could do it in one mean day or two easy ones. Before you decide to split the driving between two people, check with the rental outfit - - sometimes a second driver can almost double the cost of the rental.
Posted by
OP
Pittsburgh, PA
11 posts
Hi Ed, Thanks for the reply! We have the luxury of 3 mos in Europe. We land in Paris 8/30, and our target date for Poland/Slovakia is 10/1, which gives us plenty of time to explore. We wanted to spend about a week in Champagne/Burgundy, and then 10-12 days in the Black Forest. Some time in Munich, then to Vienna, then to Krakow. I am confident we can go from Munich to Vienna to Krakow without a car, but the sojourns in East France and SW Germany we will, apparently, definitely need a car for. I have heard that it is hard to cross borders in a rental car? I mean to return it in a different country? Yikes. What should we do?
Posted by
Pensacola
9110 posts
Returning in a different country will kill you pocketbook. Make a test run on kayak.com on something simple. Renting in Paris for three weeks and returning there compared to renting in Paris and returning in Munich three weeks later. You eyes will pop. Europe is small. It's not hard to get back to the rental country in a day, sometimes two. I've done things such as renting in Cadiz, driving to southern Italy, and getting the car back to Spain to turn it in, just to save money. We average about two hundred bucks a day, total, for every day we're gone (excluseive of air fare) - - at that rate a day or so to get a car back (and see some things along the way) is much cheaper than paying the drop-off fee.
Posted by
OP
Pittsburgh, PA
11 posts
OK Ed, Thanks for the advice. I will look into a Paris airport rental. Our first stop in Germany will be in the Black Forest for about 10 days, near Strasbourg (Schwarzwald actually). We will need a car there as well. Would Stuttgart be the best place to rent from there? I am assuming they have a big airport. I really appreciate all the advice I am getting. It is really helping us plan! Thanks!
Posted by
Pensacola
9110 posts
Stuttgart will work, but don't bother going out to the airport unless you're flying in. The extra transportation isn't worth the time or expense. Get it at the closest place. My previous comment could have been a bit misleading in that, out of curiosity, I'd checked the prices for Orly, CDG, and downtown Paris and they were all within a dollar per day. I didn't check Dijon since I knew in my heart it would be a tad more.