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Post by kiwigrandma on Jan 11, 2015 3:53:01 GMT
We plan to hire a car and travel a bit around England. We will be in london but don't want to drive in london. Has anyone any ideas on where would be a good place to pick up car not too far from london or an outer suburb of london. Thanks for any replies.
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Post by Owen on Jan 11, 2015 6:31:01 GMT
Have you decided on the name of the car rental company and where are their pickup and drop off car depots located in the greater London area.
Please make sure a car rental depot can be reached by a mainline train out of say Paddington Station to Reading or Oxford. You will be carrying luggage. Luggage and crowded tube trains do not mix.
Is it important to you to return the car to the same depot or not.
Have you any idea what part of England you want to drive to after collecting your car. You will want to drive away from London and Not drive across London to reach your first destination.
Have you driven in England before ? A manual or an automatic car.
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Post by tassiedevil on Jan 13, 2015 23:11:07 GMT
This is exactly the same dilemma I have at the moment, where to pick up the hire car! I left it with my friend who lives in London, which reminds me I need to chase him up to see what he has found out.
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Post by Oz-T on Jan 22, 2015 23:25:15 GMT
I was faced with this question a few years back when I was contemplating whether we would tour UK and Ireland by car. We ultimately chose a guided tour instead, but the research I conducted was an interesting exercise.
The first thing was that I believed it would be easier to start the rental somewhere outside London to avoid the traffic and unfamiliar city roads. I considered taking a train from London and heading toward our first major destination (why drive all that way if you could relax in a train and still see the countryside?). We would then hire a car and begin our journey from there.
The advantage of a rental car was that we had absolute control of our travels. But there were disadvantages.
The first problem was that I couldn't find any rental company that didn't charge a high fee for returning the car to a different location to where we hired it from. The second problem was that it was going to be expensive (insurance & fees) taking the car on the ferry to Ireland. If we left the car in Wales whilst we were in Ireland we would be paying a daily rental while it sat unused (and hopefully secure somewhere). So it really became a bit difficult and easier to choose a guided tour.
Further research might find ways around these problems, but it should be worth knowing about them.
We later did hire a rental car and spent a month travelling with it - but in continental Europe in 2014, not UK. I still have to complete my travel tale on that, which I hope to do in a few weeks.
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Post by kiwigrandma on Jan 23, 2015 6:07:32 GMT
Thanks Owen and oz-t for thoughts on hiring car. Thinking of catching train to brighton and picking up car there and dropping off in York. Got travel agent looking for me. I got sick of looking. Sometimes confusing. Lots always to think about when organising yourself. Hoping oz-t you get your travel tale on before we leave for France and ypres end April. No pressure.
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Post by Oz-T on Jan 27, 2015 21:38:03 GMT
Those collection and return points for the car make sense from a travel perspective; it's just that there may be a fee for not returning the car to the same place you hired it from. If that fee isn't too high it might be the best outcome - hopefully your travel agent can track down a good deal (maybe even one that waives that fee). I hope to complete my Europe travel tale in the next few weeks, well before you head off to Ypres etc.
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