Crossing country borders in a Rental Car

Yes, you will have a problem--rental car companies do not want there cars going to the Czeck Republic or Poland because a lot of times, they don't come back. In Poland, when I ride with my customers, they drive cars that have a special bar they insert into the shift box so the don't move, plus, they never leave anything in the car. Story on myself: once, when we first stopped at a restaurant, my customer was driving an incredibly beat-up Ford Focus; we stop, he gets the bar out and locks it into the shift box--I say "why are you dong that?" He says, "so they do not steal my car." I then say(foot in mouth) "who would steal this car?"

Hi Meghan
In western and central Europe you can travel between countries in a rental car without any problem as I did in 2009. I rented a car in Warsaw Poland and drove thru Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungry, Ausria, Slovenia and Croaria. There are borders but you don't have to stop there or even slow down. In some cases you will enter a country without noticing the border....it's that easy.

There are two issues: will your rental agency allow you do take the care into Poland? You'll have to ask them. Some surely will not, others may. But if yours says OK, watch out for the next issue...

Rental agencies typically charge a very large fee for picking up a car in one country and then dropping it off in another. It could be hundreds of Euros. Find out the details before you start making firm plans.

Are you saying your plan is to drive around Germany, then to Salzburg, Prague, and Poland? If you want to have the car in Germany, you may consider returning it either in Munich or Salzburg and then doing the train for the rest of the trip. I'd recommend returning it in Munich, you don't need a car in Salzburg.

Meghan,

Our trip next summer is very similar. We will pick up our car in Cologne and drive south, mostly in Germany. We will also drive a bit in Austria, but return the car in Frielessing, just over the border from Salzburg, in Germany. That way we avoid insane drop charges. Then we continue east by train - both because we are focused on cities at that point and don't need a car, and because I didn't want to deal with the higher incidence of theft in Poland and Czech. If you can get to the wedding by train, that is what I would suggest you do. Otherwise you need to return to Germany somehow to drop the car.

Thanks everyone. We have seen the quotes for different country drop off, so we were planning on picking it up & returning the car in Germany. Can anyone recommend a rental car company that doesn't charge for entering Poland?

Though, it's sounding like we'd be better off just returning the car in Berlin before evening starting in Germany.
If we are taking a train into Amsterdam, where would you recommned picking a car up in Germany? Dusseldorf? Cologne? I'd guess we'd want the least expensive train ticket out of Amsterdam into a German city.