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PNW to southern Europe

Posted by (Edmonds) on

We recently went on a RS tour of Sicily. When I searched for flights from Sea-Tac to Sicily there did not seem to be any reasonable options as there were extremely long layovers between connections. I checked out flights from the airport in Vancouver BC and found a much more reasonable connection on United/Lufthansa - direct, non-stop to Munich, about a 2 hour layover in Munich and then a direct, non-stop to Palermo. We rented a car and drove to Vancouver and this worked well for us .We live north of Seattle and a drive to Vancouver would allow us to avoid navigating Seattle traffic. It helped that we had a Nexus pass and got through the border without any delay. The rental car return is less than a minute walk to the international departure terminal. Security was a reasonable process. We were quite happy using this alternative to Sea-Tac. A one-way international car rental is not cheap but for us it seemed a reasonable option.

Happy travels!

Posted by
5687 posts

How much did you save flying from Vancouver vs. Seattle? Did you fly home directly to Seattle or did you have to fly back to Vancouver and drive home again?

Did you consider Amtrak to Vancouver instead of renting a car?

How much did it cost for the one-way car rental?

Posted by
6713 posts

I'd be interested in the rental cost too, including what I'd expect is a hefty drop-off charge. There's a recent thread in "Beyond Europe" about renting a car in Seattle and dropping in Bellingham to avoid the border, then taking something called Quick Shuttle (?) to Vancouver.

Amtrak has trains to Vancouver but most of them turn into buses north of Seattle. I see the OP is from Edmonds so Amtrak isn't likely to help. Besides, the trains (and Amtrak buses) arrive near downtown and the airport is a ways south.

I considered Vancouver when trying to figure out flights to and from Span this week, but ended up connecting through Frankfort. Poor little faraway Seattle has only a handful of nonstop Europe connections, but using Vancouver can open more pathways. And it's a half-hour flight from SeaTac.

Posted by
86 posts

I was using points to fly on United/Lufthansa to Sicily. The amount needed was the same regardless of my departure point, whether it was SeaTac or Vancouver BC. We had a weird itinerary as we went from Vancouver to Sicily, Sicily to Edinburgh and Edinburgh to Seattle via Dublin. Our return flight was on Aer Lingus and I used points (Avios) for that also. That was very reasonable as they are trying to drum up business and I was able to accumulate points quickly. Leaving out of Vancouver might not work so well if you doing the typical roundtrip.

The car rental was $195. We looked at buses, trains, and every way we could think of to get there. The problem is that most mass transit options get you into downtown Vancouver and there is no easy/cheap way to get from there to the airport.

Posted by
86 posts

In regard to the price of the car, it costs $125 to take a limo from our house to Sea-Tac so the car rental was not that much more of an upcharge.

Posted by
3487 posts

Those of us that live in the Vancouver area also have no cheap way of getting to the airport, as our public transport is a bit of a joke.
It costs CAN$75 plus tip for us to get to the airport, a half hour drive away.
We do have lots of great flights from here to Europe though! ;)

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