We love road trips and the freedom that a car gives you. Renting a car when you travel with kids give you the opportunity to travel on your own time without any schedules to keep. It allows you to go off the beaten track and experience sites that otherwise might not be so easy too reach, and you can do it all on your own time. 

Going to visit a National park, driving through small towns or visiting a well hidden beach? It all just gives you a good reason to choose to explore by road-trip. You never really know what you find when you venture out on a road trip. Some destinations is just begging to be explored by driving around. Speaking from our own experience destinations like Australia, New Zealand, the United States and really most of Europe is great for road tripping and many more places than that as well.

However, renting a car while traveling might seem daunting to some people, because one often worries, that one will left with a big bill on delivery or really just getting scammed/ripped off? Or maybe you don’t know what to be aware of when renting or where to find the best deals. 

Below we have listed some travel-tips and advice on how to find the cheapest car rental deals to save money – who doesn’t like that? And also how to avoid the most common mistakes travelers often do when renting cars.

1. Discounts and deals 
Make sure to check if you qualify for any discounts through your credit cards or from any hotels or airline programs that you are part of. If you are out late it might be a good idea to check some car rentals websites out directly as both Budget and Avis have “last minute deals” – if your are flexible with destinations and dates, you might be able to find some pretty good deals. 

2. Search for a car
You can visit car rentals websites directly and compare prices from sites to sites,  but we much prefer to use a car rental booking service like Discover Cars, (sponsored link) which is a website that quickly compile information from car rentals website and compares prices which makes your work a lot easier. 

Discover Cars (sponsored link) searches over 500 websites for deals to ensure you get the best deal and we have used it successfully before. 

You can use use the widget below to check prices and get a quote quickly ad easily.  
Be sure to compare daily and weekly rates as sometimes it might be cheaper to rent a car for 7 days instead of 5 days and then just return it early. 

3. Compare you car rental booking service with the direct website. 
When you have found a car on Discover Cars, then it might be a good idea to visit the car rentals website to compare prices. For example if Discover cars find you a deal from Hertz, you go to Hertz website and input the same destination and dates. Usually you won’t find a better deal, but it doesn’t hurt to try, but more often that not Discover Cars will have found you the best price. 

4. Book your car and book it early if possible 
When booking your car it is a really good idea to book early. The closer you get to the actual date it is often more expensive to rent assuming that there are any left to rent. Especially if you want to rent in high seasons. Road triping has become a lot more pepopular in recent years especially during the pandemic, so book early as prices will be a lot more competetive when booked early. 

Click here to get a qoute nice and easily directly from Discover Cars (Sponsored)

Below you find things to take into consideration when renting a car.

1. Does the car have manual or automatic transmission? To us personally it doesn’t matter, but we know that a lot of people would prefer automatic transmission, so be on the lookout for that when renting, especially in Europe as manual transmission is a lot more common in Europe than for example the United States. It can be a cheaper option to rent with manual transmission, but if you are not used to driving manual then pls don’t save money on that. 

2. Is there any drivers requirements? Like age, driving experience etc.? Some companies charge extra if the driver is under 25. Countries have different requirements, so pls read the fine print. 

3. Travel insurance policy requirements – what does you travel insurance policy require? Car rentals often push for extra insurance when renting a car. Should you do it or not? It really depends if you have travel insurance with collision cover or perhaps you credit card has coverage. Make sure to check it out so you know where your stand. 

4. Where is the pick up and drop of locations? Lots of people picks up their rental at the airport but pls bear in mind that the airport charges the car rental fees for this and ofcourse that is passed on to the customer. So it might be worth checking out off airport locations.  They often tend to be cheaper and if it close by the airport it might be a cheaper solutions that than picking the car up the airport. Also note that if you want to deliver your a different place than where you picked it up, there will be a fee and sometimes a substancle one at that. 

5. Which restrictions are there on the car? Depending on which destinations you rent on there might be different restrictions like you are not allowed to cross boarders or drive in certain countries or use carferries or driving on gravel roads, you name it. Just be sure to check out the restrictions and make sure to check out if they hinder you travel or it has no bearings on your trip.

6. Extra driver? With some companies you have to pay an extra fee if you want extra drivers  – some includes it in the pirce other charge a price per day and sometimes a rahter high price pr day, so be sure to check that out and you might need to consider whether you really need that extra driver if comes a cost of 10-20 US $ a day. 

7. What is not included? Be sure to check that out as it differs from rental to rental. Whether it be GPS, childs seats or liabillity service often it is not included in your rental and might be something you have to pay extra for. Be sure to check it our so you are not dissapointed upon arrival. 

8. Fill up the tank upon return? Some car rental insist that you need to fill up the tank before drop of and if you don’t, you might be charged a ridiccoulous price for them filling it up. Others allow one to drop off the car as it is. Make sure to check it our so you don’t receive an extra bill for something easily fixed by yourselves. 

9. Un-limited mileage? Depending on which destinations you rent a car at, this might be something you need to think about. For longer roads trip it would be wise to rent with un-limited mileager. Other places it doens’t really matter. Know your destiantions so you know what would suit you best in this case. Otherwise you might receive and extra bill for driving more KM than the contract allows you to. 

10. Take pictures upon pick up! – Before you start your road trip, then do yourself a favour and take pictures and videos of the car upon picking it up, expecially the windshield, the bumper and the tires as they are the most common areas to get damaged. That way you can prove any pre-existing damage upon returning it and thereby shouldn’t get blamed for them.  

We hope you found this information useful.