Most cars in Europe are manual. You may have to pay a premium for an automatic car, if you can't drive one.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi Everyone! My man and I are thinking about flying into Barcelona this summer and taking a two week car trip to Rome, stopping at various cities along the way. I started researching car rentals that allow you to pick up a car in one country and drop off in another and darn it is expensive. Anyone have any tips? Thanks!

Driving around is so American.

In Europe, see if you can leverage 3 key things there for your itinerary:
- high speed train
- dirt cheap airlines like EasyJet
- cruise lines from Barcelona into everywhere in the Mediterranean

Driving around lets you go many places that trains don't. And YOU determine the times, not the train schedules.

Anonymous wrote:Hi Everyone! My man and I are thinking about flying into Barcelona this summer and taking a two week car trip to Rome, stopping at various cities along the way. I started researching car rentals that allow you to pick up a car in one country and drop off in another and darn it is expensive. Anyone have any tips? Thanks!

Driving around is so American.

In Europe, see if you can leverage 3 key things there for your itinerary:
- high speed train
- dirt cheap airlines like EasyJet
- cruise lines from Barcelona into everywhere in the Mediterranean

OP here! Thank you for your replies. I think I am going to go the train route, stopping for a couple of days in certain cities. Has anyone done this and had success?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have either of you ever been to Barcelona or Rome before? Driving there is different than driving in the US. Italy, especially.

I'd look into train travel unless you're both experienced international drivers.

Driving in the countryside in these places is fine. The cities can be a bit hairy.

I would only do this trip if you are mainly interested in rural stuff. Otherwise train is much easier and relaxing.

+1. We rented a car in Italy, picked it up when leaving Rome and dropped it off before heading to Florence. It was fine, most hill towns had parking on the outskirts and we would walk in. In the larger cities it would be more of a hassle and not needed as public transport is good. I agree with the suggestion to use the train initially and then pick up a car for a few days in Italy.

We did exactly that route too! No car in the big cities.

OP part of your challenge may be italy. There are some car rental companies that don’t allow cars to go to certain countries and Italy is often one of them. Of course it’s easy to rent a car within Italy, and we haven’t found the driving to be difficult on 2 recent trips. So agree with the recs to take a train, or even a cheap flight, from Barcelona to Italy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have either of you ever been to Barcelona or Rome before? Driving there is different than driving in the US. Italy, especially.

I'd look into train travel unless you're both experienced international drivers.

Driving in the countryside in these places is fine. The cities can be a bit hairy.

I would only do this trip if you are mainly interested in rural stuff. Otherwise train is much easier and relaxing.

+1. We rented a car in Italy, picked it up when leaving Rome and dropped it off before heading to Florence. It was fine, most hill towns had parking on the outskirts and we would walk in. In the larger cities it would be more of a hassle and not needed as public transport is good. I agree with the suggestion to use the train initially and then pick up a car for a few days in Italy.

Anonymous wrote:Have either of you ever been to Barcelona or Rome before? Driving there is different than driving in the US. Italy, especially.

I'd look into train travel unless you're both experienced international drivers.

Driving in the countryside in these places is fine. The cities can be a bit hairy.

I would only do this trip if you are mainly interested in rural stuff. Otherwise train is much easier and relaxing.

Book the train in advance.

I've gotten lucky from time to time on the one way European car rentals between countries (possible to find no charge) but you really need to look because otherwise the drop off charge is painful (approx 500 USD)

Anonymous wrote:It would be much cheaper to pick up in the same country. Spend time in barcelona. Take a train to Milan. Pick up a car there.

I like this idea! Is it easy to just book a train that day, or do you have to do it way in advance?

It would be much cheaper to pick up in the same country. Spend time in barcelona. Take a train to Milan. Pick up a car there.

Have either of you ever been to Barcelona or Rome before? Driving there is different than driving in the US. Italy, especially.

I'd look into train travel unless you're both experienced international drivers.

Have you thought about taking trains instead? It can be expensive not only from an airfare perspective but also a car rental perspective.

Never done it, but you might also be looking at increased airfare for the Two one way tix. If it were significantly more I’d just make my trip into a loop and return the car where we started.

Hi Everyone! My man and I are thinking about flying into Barcelona this summer and taking a two week car trip to Rome, stopping at various cities along the way. I started researching car rentals that allow you to pick up a car in one country and drop off in another and darn it is expensive. Anyone have any tips? Thanks!