March 17, 2020
Driving a rental car in Europe is not as difficult or intimidating as I had thought. When we took our trip to France, I knew that I had no idea when we would visit again and I wanted to see as much of Normandy as I could in our seven days there. The only way to do that was for us to have a car at our disposal.
And, I am so grateful that we did! It freed us up to take back roads through France, eat in local restaurants that were not within walking distance to our hotel and it allowed us to drive the coast of Normandy without any time constraints.
Where To Rent A Car
We rented our car at the Charles de Gaulle airport from the company that we use quite often in the United States: Enterprise Car Rentals. Technically, we reserved the car while home in the United States, online, and just picked it up at the airport. Any company that you would use here can get you a car there, as well. Super easy.
If you go to a non-English speaking country, they have English speaking employees at the car rental facility to help you with your reservation–that helps out a lot with those contract details that you might miss otherwise.
MY ADVICE FOR RENTING A CAR IN ANOTHER COUNTRY:
- Google the traffic laws for the country and region that you intend to visit.
- Download images of the street signs a long with their meanings. Laminate that sucker and when you get your rental car, tape it to the dashboard. Know how to determine the speed limits. Not all countries use miles per hour. A lot of European counties use Kilometers per hour. I would suggest having a laminated card with speed limit conversions, as well.
- Be prepared with a lot of change in the currency of the country that you will be visiting for toll roads.
- As soon as we left the airport we were faced with toll booths. 1.) my French did not help me read the signs and it was a pretty stressful event the first time around. 2.) Luckily, when I did get to the correct booth, I did have enough change to get me past the booth and to our hotel. We ran into SEVERAL toll booths. Have change. No need to have foreign speaking people screaming at you for holding up the line.
- Make sure that you rent a car with GPS.
- I had intended to use my phone just like I do here in the states, but realized that I couldn’t use it without internet and data in a foreign country. Now, if you buy a package that gives you data out of the US through your phone carrier, then you should be good, but I didn’t do that. So, our GPS saved our lives. Also, since our cars here don’t have GPS, we weren’t very good at programming the one in the car in France. The service rep so very kindly programmed ours to speak English and then programmed it to get us to our hotel. After that, we had to learn to put in addresses ourselves. We survived!
- Rent an automatic transmission vehicle.
- I know how to drive a manual transmission car and was going to “do it the European way”, at first. I ended up choosing an automatic at the last minute and I am so very grateful that I did. There is so much that you have to learn, relearn and be very aware of when driving in a new country. Not having to deal with clutches and gears freed me up to focus on more important things.
- Get insurance on your vehicle and take out travelers medical insurance, as well.
- I didn’t want to have to deal with legal issues in a foreign country in the event that I was in an accident and accrued medical expenses or liability expenses. I couldn’t travel back and forth to deal with things such as that. So, it was just wiser to protect myself up front.
- Google–if you can–what the gas pumps look like in the country you are visiting. Google–if you can–what their roadways look like, as well.
- I know that might sound corny, but I was a little anxious the first time on the “interstate” in France because the way that it is set up is different from the US…not a ton, but enough. I went into it all assuming that it would look the same as in the US, though–I mean, it’s just a road after all, right? It just makes me feel better to be aware and prepared for the changes beforehand.
- Keep your gas tank full.
- You are in a foreign country, exploring, and cannot be completely sure where the next gas station will be. I learned that from experience.
- Pack snacks in your car for the same reason as keeping your tank full.
- You are out exploring and do not know where your next restaurant will be. Again, I learned that from experience.
If you would like to know more about our time in Europe read about Our road trip through Normandy, France.
Have you rented a car in a foreign country? Any advice to add? Please let my readers know in the comment section.
Thank you for reading.
RENTING A CAR
I decided that we would just rent a car and drive all over France. What was I thinking?
We picked up our car from the airport, which was my first real French speaking experience outside of the states. I was quickly learning that I was not as conversational as I thought that I was (I mean, it has been ten years since I was in college). We rented our car—which we ended up going with an automatic, thank God. My husband and I both know how to drive manual transmission cars, but that would have been quite a handful on top of trying to figure out a completely different country’s roadways and signs and language. Whoa.
Luckily, and something that completely saved our lives, is that the rental car fella programmed our cars GPS in English and taught us how to put in addresses (our cars are old and do not have the GPS screens. So, we have only ever used our phones for directions, but without internet, we couldn’t do that). I had planned on using the old school map method to criss-cross all of Normandy. Truly, I would not have survived. I have no idea what I was thinking, at all. There are so many one-ways everywhere!!!
But, at the end of the trip, I am so grateful for that car. It offered us so much freedom. Even the receptionist at our hotel commended us for being so adventurous. He said that a lot of people insist on being picked up from the airport and then just stay at the hotel and miss out on seeing the beautiful country. There was no way that I was going to do that, at all. I had one week and I wanted to see as much as I possibly could.
If you considered renting a car in France, here are my first impressions and things that I would suggest:
- The structure of the roadways are different than the US.
- At first, this scared me. I got out onto the autoroute (interstate) and the signs were all so different and there were no sides to the road to pull off and people drove sooooo fast. But, if you just take a moment to think intuitively, you can quickly figure out their system and how they have the roads and turn offs structured.
- The speeds are not in miles per hour.
- This was odd to me at first. Obviously, they are in kilometers per hour. So, we could drive from 90-130 kilometers per hour. It just felt weird getting the car up to 130 kph even though that is only 80 mph.
- There are very, very few gas stations.
- The area that we were in (and maybe it is all of Europe) was not commercialized with fast food restaurants and gas stations. Luckily, their vehicles get amazing gas mileage. My advice is just to keep an eye on your tank and fill up when you see a gas station!
- There were a ton of toll roads.
- Thankfully, my mom gave me a bunch of left-over change in Euros before we left. So, as soon as we drove off from the airport we hit an unexpected toll booth. The toll booth caused us a lot of anxiety because we went into the wrong lane to begin with. Their toll booths are like ours and they have lanes for credit cards, cash and passes. I hadn’t learned the French for those terms. So, I was totally lost and confused and scared. Luckily, we got stuck in a lane that had no cars behind us and we clicked on the help button for assistance. The assistant didn’t speak English, but they were able to decipher what I was trying to say enough to get us backed up and into the correct lane. That was a high stress moment. I would look up foreign toll booths online to see what they look like, if I was doing it over—but how would I have known?
- Know your street signs.
- Again, my French was not as good as I thought that it was. I was out of practice and very rusty. I could not identify any of the street signs except ‘Stop’. If I could do that over again, I would have looked up French street signs, printed them off, laminated them, and taped them to the dashboard of the car. That would have saved me tons of anxiety, for sure.
- Do not get pulled over.
- I don’t know what would happen, but that is just it; what happens if you get a speeding ticket in a foreign country?
- Know how to drive through a multi-laned roundabout.
- I live in a small town that got a one lane roundabout about a year ago and the entire town was up in arms over it. No one knew how to properly use it. Change doesn’t go over very well here, to begin with. So, I get to France and there are roundabouts, literally, everywhere! And with three or more lanes! There is definitely a right and a wrong way to use a roundabout. There are several videos to show you how to use one properly. I have included two that you can view. I hope that this helps! ROUNDABOUT VIDEO ONE AND ROUNDABOUT VIDEO TWO
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