Europe a la Carte Blog

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As modern tourists we tend to travel fast. We fly in, grab a hotel room (or hostel bed), see all the tourist sights, try a local meal or two and zip back home again. We stay within cities, we are surrounded by other tourists and we do it all in a hurry before our days or cash run out. We don’t soak in ambience, we dive bomb into it and think that the few drops clinging to our hair are equivalent to the pruney-skin permeation of a long and leisurely exposure.

Personally I’m an exponent of slow travel, a term I thought was particularly nifty until I googled it when writing this article and discovered that I didn’t coin the phrase. My version of slow travel is camping. Travelling leisurely through the back country, off the highways and into smaller towns. Getting to meet the locals in an environment (the communal lifestyle of a campsite) which encourages interactions (unlike the private sterility of a hotel room).

Camping lets you soak in the atmosphere

Of course camping isn’t always feasible. If you go with your own car, caravan or mobile home you are limited by how far you can drive in the allotted holiday travel time. Driving three days across Europe only to have four days there and a three day return journey is not anyone’s idea of fun. Some ways around that are to look at carrying your car on the train – something which saves time, stress and petrol. You can also carry the minimum camping gear with you on a flight and locally hire a car or just rely on public transport to get you around. Or you can rent the entire get up once you arrive.

But the prices do start paying out, especially if you are travelling for a longer period. The average European campsite costs 15€-20€ per night, including electricity, with each person costing around 2€ extra. Showers may or may not be an additional cost (usually 0.50 – 1€). This is similar to a bed in a dorm room of an inner city hostel for one person, but in a group becomes extremely cheap and is far more appropriate for travelling with a family. Finding campsites is easy – decent maps of the country will have many marked and usually your home automobile club will have lists of international campsites, ones which they have even checked out and rated.

You aren’t necessarily limited to remote campsites on the outskirts of town either. If you are travelling in a self-contained motor home there are many sites which allow for short stops, overnight stays and replenishing water/emptying waste. The E6 on the coast of northern Norway is dotted with them, in Germany they are called Stellplätze, in France Aires De Service, and many are free of charge.

The varying sizes of mobile homes

I’m not really encouraging the use of the large mobile homes. These white ships are gas-guzzlers, can be dangerous on narrow roads (especially when driven by people unused to the size) and cannot be driven into European city centres because of their size. Smaller vans, such as VW camping buses, can be and tenting means you have a car available for local trips without having to pack up your campsite every time.

Of course camping doesn’t work for everyone, nor does it work for every situation. It requires a certain amount of preparation and investment in gear, the availability of a little more time and a roughing-it mentality. While northern France’s freezing autumn rains may send even myself into the shelter of a local chateau, as a budget summer travel option it is a relaxed, slow travel affair.

It’s really hard to answer the question “Should you hire a car in Italy?”. It depends on:

1 Where you want to visit - if you want to visit a one or a few major cities such as Rome, Florence. Venice a car is just a pain in congested traffic and one way systems, difficult and expensive to park. It’s much better to walk around, use public transport or taxis.

2 Where you want to stay - if you want to stay in a rural location e.g. a villa in the Tuscan countryside you’ll probably need to hire a car to get to your villa, do grocery shopping and visit some nearby villages.

3 Your nervous disposition - if you can cope being constantly honked, crazily overtaken, and are good at squeezing into tiny parking spaces.. I must admit that I find it really stressful and I drive around 20,000 miles a year in the UK annually so I’m a pretty experienced driver.

4 Your budget - car hire in Italy is pretty expensive, at around £150 a week for a super mini, about 50% dearer than Spain and fuel costs 1.5 euros a litre. Obviously the more passengers the more cost effective it becomes.

Castliogne del Lago. Lake Trasimeno

We hired a car for our one week tour around southern Tuscany and Umbria during the last week of May 2008. To visit all the locations such as Lake Trasimeno, Spoleto and Gubbio in one week we had to have our own transport. It cost £157 for a 7 day hire through Economy Car Hire for a Renault Clio with no insurance excess to pay and 2 named drivers. We paid 85 euros (approx £65) for unleaded petrol coming to a total of around £220 or £110 per person which is pretty good value for a weeks transport.

My husband did the majority of the driving, partly because I’m better at navigating and deciphering one tiny road sign with arrows which points in an indiscernible direction, I drive a lot for my day job in the UK and I chickened out as I couldn’t face the aggressive driving style on roads which I’m convinced were much narrower than those in the UK, even on dual carriageways.

However it was quite nerve wracking, one evening we got totally lost and disorientated in heavy traffic trying to find our hotel in Treni. We just had to stop and take some deep breaths. Luckily we found a bus route map in bus shelter and we able to work out our own directions to the hotel.

On the other hand we saw so much beautiful scenery and found some idyllic spots and had flexibility about where and for how long we stopped at each location. Having the car was very convenient for example we’d carry a thermos flask and various provisions in the car so we could have refreshment and picnics at scenic locations. We didn’t have to carry our luggage to stations, on and off trains or to our hotel.

So as every no easy answer to the question, “Should I hire a car in Italy?” You have to carefully consider what you want from your trip in Italy and decide if car hire is appropriate for you.

If you hire a car at Pisa airport where the rental company has a policy of returning the car with a full tank of fuel you may find it virtually impossible to fill up the fuel tank of your rental car. When we were on our way to the airport on a Saturday afternoon, the petrol station near the airport, was unamannned and the payment machine would only accept bancomat cards (I didn’t know what they were) or cash in 5, 10 or 20 euro notes. The machine would not take credit cards.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

You don’t know exactly how much fuel you need to exactly fill the tank and you may not have notes of correct size. It’s a pretty nasty sting in the tail when you are getting back to the airport to check in for return flight. There’s only one machine for all the pumps and when we were there there were another British couple who put in 40 euro worth of fuel which wasn’t enough to fill tank but they had no more cash, so they were going to be hit with refuelling charge although they were perfectly willing to refill car. A Brazilian guy lost 40 euro in the machine. We were lucky we had a 20 and a 5 euro notes and that filled our tank.

If suppliers have a return full policy it should be easier to adhere to this policy. I think all the car hire suppliers in Pisa should put pressure on petrol station to be manned or at least to accept credit cards.

My advice to you is to ensure you leave plenty of time to refuel and have a supply of 20, 10 and 5 euro notes.

Economy Car Hire are offering a 10% discount on bookings made online for Spain and her islands during July and August 2008, if you book before the 11 June.

Alpujarras by traskas

I’ve used Economy Car Hire twice and rate them highly as they have a no excess policy, unlike some other so called “inclusive” prices where you can be stung with an excess of several hundred euro if your hire car is damaged or stolen. Their prices also include a second driver free of charge.

On the last two occasions I booked car rental in Italy last month and November 2007 in the Canaries, Economy Car Hire had the best deal for 2 drivers. Spain is good value for car hire as I paid 50% more for car rental in Italy than in the Canaries.

As always do shop around for the best deal and read my car hire tips.

Easycar.com have done some research into the causes of arguments between British couples when driving a hire car abroad. My ears pricked up at this as my husband and I will be hiring a car to explore off the beaten track in southern Tuscany and Umbria at the end of this month. It doesn’t exactly portent well with more than a third of couples arguing when driving abroad (I’m actually surprised it isn’t higher) with poor map reading skills being the most likely cause of the argument.

by finnur

I had to laugh at some of the tips in the article such as ask locals for direction, which should have the addition of “assuming that the locals can speak English well and are good at giving directions”. Another gem of wisdom was to play music that you both like (assuming that you both like the same music) as you’re unlikely to argue when your favourite tune is playing (would you like to bet on that?).

What are your tips for avoiding arguments when driving abroad?

I’m always trying to point out the potential pitfalls of car hire because it is complicated to come up with best all round car hire deal. You should never purchase car hire on price alone, you really just examine all aspects of the car rental agreement.

If I hire a car abroad once a year I use a car hire company which offers a truly inclusive price where either you will pay no excess in the event of damage of theft such as economycarhire or the excess will be refunded by the car rental firm if you pay an additional charge such as AutoEurope. However even with this cover damage to the roof, undercarriage, locks, tyres and windows is not covered.

I’m renting a car in Italy for one week at the end of May and I’ve booked through economycarhire which has zero excess policy excluding roof, undercarriage, tyres and windows. I think the risk of damage to these parts is fairly low and the cost of that damage won’t be too high.

However if I hire a car, away from home, more than a couple of times a year then I buy annual excess insurance is a good option. With this you are covered for any type of damage and you can go for a cheaper car hire quote which doesn’t include the no excess. The rental location must be more than 150 kilometres from your usual residence. European annual excess cover costs £49 for Europe for drivers aged up to 74 years of age, the cost is £65 for drivers aged 75 - 85. You’ll be covered for car hire periods of up to 31 days, as many times a year as you require. The policy covers all drivers named on the car hire agreement.

So to answer the question “Is annual car hire excess insurance a good buy?” my opinion is an emphatic yes, if you hire a car more than once a year and perhaps even for a single car hire if you find a really low price quote where there is a large excess and you want to cover yourself for any potential damage to the hire car.

On my return flight with Easyjet last week, I glanced through the in flight magazine and was dismayed by the easyJetHoliday three page spread advert. One page described the tale of woe of a couple who’d put together their own holiday, spending all evening looking for hotels which caused the computer to crash twice, then discovered that the flight price they’d seen earlier had increased and to cover this increase had to book accommodation in a cheaper, less desirable locale. However the second couple who booked it all on easyJet saved time and money.

I doubt the second couple saved money booking with easyJet. They may have been the ones comprising on location as easyJet has an exclusive hotel partner, so I don’t think they can offer such a wide choice of hotels. As for price, a metasearch such as HotelsCombined searches more than 30 suppliers so is far more likely to find the lowest price. As for the time factor, yes it would be quicker just to book everything with easyJet. However using a price comparison site doesn’t take long.

But it states in the easyJet ad that they guarantee the lowest price. Cast your eyes to line 4 where it states that the guarantee doesn’t cover flights and hotels booked separately. So why are easyJet bothering to mention the guarantee in the context of an advert where the first couple book the elements separately, so they wouldn’t even be covered by the guarantee?

Are easyJet relying on customer inertia i.e. customers can’t be bothered to look at other sites and believe that a low cost airline must also offer low price accommodation? Are customers reassured by the lowest price guarantee?

Now easyJet are great for low cost flights when you fly off peak, it only cost me £53 for a return flight from Glasgow to Berlin, with online check in and no hold baggage. The flight was 15 minutes early both ways. But my advice don’t book accommodation or car hire on their site until you shop around. You can see an example of savings made by shopping around in this post.

With car hire it’s not generally the cheapest price that’s the best deal for you as you have to judge the quote on their final total truly inclusive price. We’re flying to Pisa for a week at the end of My 2008 and need to hire a car as we’re visiting rural Umbria and Lake Trasimeno. I booked the flights a few months ago and did start looking for car hire in January but gave up as it wasn’t easy to compare like with like.

However I thought I’d better get it sorted so after some evaluation I discovered that the best deal for us with no insurance excess to pay and 2 drivers included was with ecomonycarhire. As I’ve booked with them previously I received a 10% discount on the price for bookings made by 28 February by typing in the code EBNLD2008. This brought the price down to £157 for a supermini such as Fiat Panda. Italy is quite expensive for car hire as we paid £118 for a weeks car hire in the Canaries in November 2007.

AutoEurope would have been cheaper if there was only one driver at £140 with a refundable excess but they charge an additional driver fee of £5 per day, bringing the total price per day up to £175.

I had to be careful to read the small print. There was a quote which was £1 cheaper at £156. However that company charged an additional 20 euros plus VAT, around £17, for out of hours arrival as we are due in on a Saturday evening. The company quoting at £157, with whom I booked, operate until 23.00 on Saturdays, so no additional fees.

With the no excess offered by economycarhire and other companies such as AutoEurope you are not covered for damage to windscreens, tyres, undercarriage or the interior of the car. If you book a hire car for more than 2 weeks a year it could be worth your while purchasing an annual excess insurance policy which costs around £50 a year for Europe. This policy covers you for damage to windscreens, tyres etc. With this policy you could rent a car from AutoEurope for £130.

I know that sometimes it seems too much bother to spend all this time checking prices and reading the small print. Fair enough with a hotel room, so what if you pay another couple of pounds for the room but it’s a different matter with car hire, as you could end up paying an excess of up 1600 euros if you book with some companies on a so called all inclusive quote.

We’re going to Italy for a week in May and will need to hire a car, so I decided to look at Travelsupermarket.co.uk car hire comparison facility.  However I think that the search results are not a true comparison, as all of the cheapest quotes were not actually an inclusive price, as there was an excess of several hundred euros to pay if the hire car was stolen or damaged.  Most companies offer a no insurance excess if you pay an extra fee for this.  With most of these policies you’ll have to pay the excess and then reclaim it.  You may also have to pay more for an additional driver.

Economycarhire include no insurance excess and a second driver in their prices.  However Economycarhire came up at number 11 in the Travelsupermarket search results. The other companies with cheaper quotes had additional charges for no insurance excess and a second driver.  However for our quote for Italy in May, Economycarhire have an additional charge of 20 euros plus VAT, for an out of hours pick up, as we arrive on a Saturday evening at 18:00.

It’s really hard to work out which is the best deal for car hire.  I think it would be great if  Travelsupermarket could list exactly what is included in the price to allow you to make a valid comparison.  That’s probably too much to ask as some of the car hire sites don’t even list all the additional fees, they say something like “charge for second driver payable locally”.

I like to try out suppliers that I feature on my site for myself. I decided to promote ecomonycarhire as they offer low prices combined with no insurance excess and include an additional driver at no extra cost.

I hired a Corsa class vehicle with ecomonycarhire.com for our holiday in Fuerteventura in the Canaries for one week in November 2007 at a cost of £118. We didn’t have to wait for long at the car hire desk to pick up our keys as there were 2 members of staff. We were upgraded to a Opel Astra which was in good condition. On our return we simply dropped off the key in the envelope provided with details of our mileage and parking space number.

I would recommend Economycarhire for good prices and efficient service.