Here are ten things you need to know if you plan to rent a car and drive in Europe.
1. The first thing you will need to know is what side of the road you will be driving on and what side of the car the steering wheel is on. In most of Europe, the cars are just like in the United States. You drive on the right side of the road and the steering wheel is on the left side of the car. However, if you are traveling to England, you will be driving on the left side of the road and the steering wheel is on the right side of the car.
I know what you’re thinking: So what? I can handle it, no big deal. I can totally reverse everything I’m used to and turn right when I would have turned left and ….Welll, I have news for you- think again, especially if you will be driving in a city like London.
Why? It isn’t easy to break long-established habits. You have to concentrate every second on doing 50% of your driving the opposite of what you did before, and knowing when something is the same and what changes. For instance, to turn right you turn right, but you will be in a different lane and turning right takes you across traffic like turning left in America did. You will have to watch out for traffic coming from the right, because you will have to pass over it to get into the left lane of traffic to continue on. It actually is pretty confusing. Add to this a city, with horrible traffic. Imagine driving in rush hour traffic on the beltway, but not yet knowing the rules of the road. This could lead to disaster and some pretty bad wrecks. If you’re going to try it, at least practice out on a quiet road until you get the hang of it.
I have to tell you something about London- the traffic is your worst nightmare. You can spend all day trying to get from one side of the city to the other. If you are just flying into London and then leaving, I would positively recommend taking public transportation instead of renting a car.
2. The next thing you will need to know is how to read road signs. This could be difficult in London, since you are driving on the wrong side of the road, but at least the signs are in English. Once you get to France, Germany and Switzerland, for instance, this all changes. Now, you are reading road signs that are in a foreign language. If you are going to try this, you will have to prepare yourself. I would recommend getting a language phrasebook, say, for English to German, that includes road signs. Familiarize yourself with what different road signs mean. It would be awful to think you needed to merge when you really were supposed to stop, and to wreck into another car.
There is an excellent website available for learning about German road signs at http://gettingaroundgermany.home.att.net/zeichen.htm . In Germany, the road signs make use of international symbols and pictures to make understanding easier, but this doesn’t mean you will be able to read the picture if you have no idea in advance what it stands for. Use this site to learn about the road signs in Germany ahead of time. If you are visiting France, there is also a useful website, http://www.alltravelfrance.com/France/Car_Rental/Road_Signs.htm . For other countries, visit http://www.ideamerge.com/motoeuropa/roadsigns/ .
3. You won’t get very far if you don’t know how to read road maps. This is more of a talent than a skill, but you can learn some basic concepts. You have to be able to figure out where north and south are on the map, and some other basic pieces of knowledge. You will need to know the scale, so you can determine distances. All distances in Europe are in kilometers instead of miles. A kilometer is .62 miles. A mile is 1.61 kilometers. If you know this conversion, you can determine the distance you need to travel. To get a general idea if you aren’t great with math and don’t happen to have a calculator with you on the trip, is that a kilometer is a little over half a mile. So if you are traveling 50 kilometers, you are going a little over 25 miles (31 miles actually.)
You will also need to know something about the language on the road maps. You could get a translation book and read it ahead of time, or find go to a website to learn some of the language, just like above. I can’t stress how important it is to understand the road signs and the road maps in a foreign language. You can end up lost and have immense trouble reaching your destination. What’s worse is that you may then have trouble asking directions to get help.
4. So, here is the fourth thing to do. Have an understanding of how to ask for directions in the language of the country you will be visiting. It isn’t time to realize all of these things once you arrive- prepare ahead of time and save yourself a great burden on your trip!
I have to say, I thought that I would be able to read the road signs and maps, since I am so good at this in the United States. I thought I could use the guidebooks and translate enough English to German to ask questions if I couldn’t figure something out. I was truly mistaken. The only thing that saved me in Germany was the fact that I had learned AHEAD OF TIME how to say “Ich weiss nicht,” which means I don’t know. So, everyone at least knew I had no idea what they were talking about when they were trying to help me. People would keep trying until they didn’t hear me once again utter these same sad musings.
Preparation is so important. Know in advance that it is difficult to learn on the fly, or to read a guidebook quickly enough for someone to be able to help you. If you learn enough before your trip, it will really help.
5. GPS. Okay, here is the saviour of mentally challenged drivers. If you are clueless, all you need to do is put your travel destination into the GPS system on your car and it will tell you how to reach your destination. Right? Right? That’s what I thought. I requested with the car rental company to have a GPS system in the car, and was even told specifically my car would have it. When I arrived at the train station to pick up the car, I found out that promises don’t necessarily mean promises. The car we were given didn’t have a GPS system at all. With about a half an hour of trying to find someone who spoke English and using my translation book, I finally got my point across and we were transferred to a second car. Problem was, the GPS system was in German. It was next to impossible to program it, mainly because I had never used GPS before. Perhaps I could have figured my way through it if I had some idea of how to program GPS, but I didn’t. We were unable to use the GPS hardly at all during the trip, because even when we found English speaking Germans, they couldn’t figure out how to work the GPS system.
6. So, if you make it through the first five tips, then you get to the more specific problems. What if you break down in the middle of nowhere in your rental car? Then what? Get an international cell phone at least a month before you leave for your trip, and charge it with at least 100 minutes of talk time. We had to call the rental car company when we had problems picking up the car, and I used almost 45 minutes of talk time by the time I was able to get an English speaking agent at the German toll-free number. Once you run out of minutes, if it’s a prepaid phone, then you might as well not have it. Recharge the minutes before you get down to your last five. Some rental car companies offer the option to rent a cellphone with the car rental, but you still have to pay about $40 to have it shipped to you, and you must return it or pay a huge fee (like $200!) One such company that gives you this option is www.autoeurope.com . If you book your flight overseas through www.orbitz.com, they give you the option to purchase a cell phone for about $40, that comes with some minutes prepaid. The phones that you get are usually from www.ekit.com , so you could just purchase one from here directly.
7. Car ferries. In Europe, you will find places that transport your car across a waterway via a ferry. You can take a ferry across the English channel from England to France, for instance. One carrier is www.Seafrance.com . In Germany, you will find ferries on the Rhine River Valley in the castle area from Rudesheim to Koblenz. More information can be found at http://www.welterbe-mittelrheintal.de/index.php?id=53&L;=3 . If you are going to ride a car ferry, you will need to know if the rental company allows for this. If they don’t cover it under their insurance, you must then ask your own insurane provider if it will be covered.
8. Garage/Parking closings. I call this the mistake I made since I don’t know enough german. We parked in this garage while on the trip, to park while we were shopping in a city shopping area. When we came back, the garage was closed, even though it was relatively early (10 pm). Well, at least it was early in my book. We went all over the area, trying to get help. The police said we would have to come back the next day. We did find someone to help us read the signs, and they told us that one of the signs clearly stated that the garage closed at 9 pm. So, we had to take a taxi 30 kilometers away, because no more local trains were running at that time. Then, we had to take a train back in the morning and change our plans for the next day, so we could come back and get the car.
Be careful and make sure you know that you are parking somewhere legal, and if you park in a garage, know what time it closes for the evening!
9. Know about the cost of gas. Gas generally costs more in Europe than it does in the United States. This is even worse for Americans due to the poor exchange rate between the dollar and the Euro (used in Germany and France), and the dollar and the British pound. If you are going to rent a car, figure out how many kilometers you will be driving, get an idea of the gas mileage in the car type you will be renting, and then you can determine about how much you will have to spend on gas. If it turns out to be some outrageous number, perhaps you will want to take the trains instead.
10. Have a backup plan. There is no way to prepare yourself so well that no mishap will happen. You should have some plan established in case you run into a problem. Carry a credit card, small amount of cash, and identification/passport with you at all times in case you need it. If you break down and have to be towed, you will have to have some way to pay for the towing, for example. Be prepared for anything and everything to happen.
Hopefully, with these tips, you will be able to have an enjoyable time on your trip, and make great use of your rental car!
