Renting a car in the countries you are going to visit is a great advantage compared to using public transport. Of course, in order to take advantage of this advantage, you must meet certain conditions. For this reason, in this article, we tried to remove the question marks in mind for those who need to pay attention while renting a car and for those who will rent for the first time. In addition to all these, we did not forget to give motorbike rental details for motorbike enthusiasts. You can click on the link for motorbike rental details.

In order to rent a car, you must first of all be at least 21 years of age and at least two years have passed since you obtained your driving licence.  To rent a luxury car, you must be at least 30 years old and at least five years have passed since you got your driving licence. These values may vary according to some companies. For example, Sixth requires two years, while a one-year driving licence is sufficient for Europcar. For this reason, check that the information is up to date on the official website of the company you will rent a car from.

As a secondary condition, if your Findeks credit rating is between 1500 - 1900, in the range of these values that are considered appropriate, you can rent. (Findeks Credit Rating: We can call it a report based on the scoring system of the repayment habits of the person's repayment habits to the banks, which is accepted in the banking system used by the people and kept independently of the banks used.)

Keep in mind that sometimes an alternative make or model may be given to the car you rent. Generally, quality companies give you an upper segment of the vehicle you rented in such cases. It happened to us a few times and we always bought a higher segment.  

Our advice,

• Definitely rent a car from major companies that have branches in every country and have been in the market for many years. Stay away from local and unknown car companies. On the other hand, let's say in some cities, even if it is rare, it is completely disadvantageous to rent a car. For example, if you are only going to visit Tbilisi, renting a car is completely disadvantageous. In the articles about big cities, I already specify whether it is necessary to rent a car or not. Nevertheless, if you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us by e-mail from the "contact" section.

• When we want to rent a car for our destination country, we always use www.rentalcars.com because it gives us all possible options and all companies. We usually choose the one that offers the best price, and when choosing, we make sure that the company does not have a large amount of negative reviews. We also check different platforms and compare prices. The first of these is www.booking.com which actually uses the same base as the rentalcars booking application. Apart from this, it is also useful to take a look at www.arguscarhire.com and www.holidayautos.com. I’ll recommend separate sites for motorbikes. Apart from this, sometimes we also check the official sites of well-known companies such as Sixt, Hertz, Garenta, Budget, Greenmotion, Enterprise, Avis, Naniko, Alomo, Europcar, Thrifty, Autounion. After you have already decided on the company, we recommend you to take a look at all the details and conditions about car hire from the official website.

• Sometimes the person in charge at the company can forget, but you should definitely ask for a phone number to call in case of emergency. If you have a problem with the vehicle, for technical support & roadside assistance situations and possible accident situations. At the same time, be sure to learn the traffic police and ambulance number of that country from the officer in the company and write it down.

Vehicle choice is of course an option related to budget, taste and driving skills. However, small vehicles for congested metropolises are advantageous in every respect. hatchback vehicles such as mini coper, c1, clio, fiat panda, opel corsa are more suitable for large metropolitan cities. However, if your route is to the quieter cities of that country or if you have some mountain and off-road areas in your programme, you can even choose a 4x4 or pick-up vehicle.

• Always book early. This has two advantages: firstly, you can rent a car for almost half the price. The second advantage is that you will not be able to find a car at the airport where you land during peak seasons.  

• Before taking delivery of the vehicle, take photos from all 4 sides of the vehicle without signing the delivery form to be given by the attendant.  Take closer shots for visible damages on the bodywork and record all dents, dents, scratches that attract your attention with photographs. At the same time, if there is a situation that attracts your attention such as stains, tears, deformations on the seats in the interior, take a photo. Take a photo of the mile or km information on the dashboard before you drive the car. Of course, before taking all these photos, if possible, set the date and time information to appear in the photos taken from the camera settings of your phone. In addition to these, the most important thing is that the delivery person has a list. This list is a list showing the current damage status of the vehicle. This form is always on a tablet in digital form and you have to sign it when you take delivery of the vehicle. Before signing, take a quick look at the list and if there is a difference between the current situation and the list, inform the attendant of the situation you have detected and ask to be included in the list. If you are given a statement such as there was no such damage, you can prevent all possible suspicions by showing the photos you have taken.

• If you have a dash cam in your home country, take it with you and install it in your hire car. Or alternatively, if you are a motorbike user like us and have a go-pron, use it as a dash cam. Make sure you do this. There are two reasons for this. To be able to record an accident that you are not guilty of, and at the same time, when police officers stop you, if they intend to ask for a bribe, they will come eye to eye with the camera and give up this attempt.

• Store all important documents such as driving licence, car insurance, insurance documents, vignette receipts, green card if you are going to change countries, passport etc. together in a safe place that you can easily access, for example in the glove compartment of the vehicle. Do not forget to take them with you when you get out of the vehicle. And send a photocopy and photos of all of them, including your passports, if possible, to yourself as an e-mail, not only on your phone but also in your e-mail, in case they are stolen on your person or from your vehicle.

• Before handing over the vehicle, you need to fill the tank, wash the vehicle or have it washed. In addition, you will have to wait for an average of 15 minutes as the control personnel will check the vehicle for a while while you are taking delivery of the vehicle.  Considering all these time needs, make sure that you make the time planning correctly in order not to be late for the airport.

Do not forget to have full damage protection for your car. Some countries have terrible driving. Especially in Italy, Georgia, Albania, Turkey, Indonesia, Sri Lanka. Even if you are a driver who obeys the rules, there is a possibility that they may come and hit you while waiting at a red light. It happened to us three or four times. 

• For this reason, they ask you if you want 'full coverage' during the internet hire phase. This full insurance saves you from all financial responsibility in case of an accident, and the amount you have to pay in case of an accident can easily reach 4000 - 5000 Euros. We have never taken any risk so far and we have always had full insurance with a difference of about 10-30 Euros per day. However, we do not have this insurance when we rent the car online, but when we go to the company to take delivery of the car, because the full insurance price offered to you when renting from the internet is cheaper at the company's own place.

• In some cities, finding a car parking space is a real problem. In these cases, try to prefer closed car parks, even if they are a bit more expensive. However, if you exceed the lines marked on the ground for one car in the closed car parks, they charge double at the exit. Make sure you park the car within the lines. If possible, always park the car so that the front of the car is facing the road or corridor from which you are exiting. If you have an accident while reversing, the insurance policy will find you guilty. Because this is an international driving rule that is not generally known.

• There may be regions where you lose internet access for a short or long time while travelling by car. In this case, be sure to download the offline map data of the country you are travelling to on your phone. Maps.me or an alternative programme you will find will do the job.

• Before you go to the routes you will take in the cities you will visit, make a route in your mind the evening before. Find out where the car parks are located on this route or in the region and mark them on applications such as google maps or maps me. Even as a backup plan, always identify the second car park closest to the first car park so that you have an alternative.

• Toll motorways should always be your priority, free roads parallel to your destination are always older, poorly maintained and unsafe. For this reason, for your driving safety, do not drive on shabby roads to avoid paying motorway tolls. Experience proves this. We have rented cars, motorbikes and sometimes even caravans hundreds of times in total. At the beginning, we avoided the motorway tolls a few times and took the old roads. However, luck did not always smile on us and sometimes we found ourselves in a wasteland at the end of a finished road. Sometimes trying to get down the stairs made for pedestrians at the end of the road by car :D I am not exaggerating, it all happened to us.

• You may have to pass through some motorways with vehicle banderoles called "vignette". In European countries, if your car does not have the appropriate "vignette" in this system, you may face big fines. Since each country's "vignette" application is different, I suggest you do a research before you go. You can benefit from " www.tolltickets.com " and " www.tolls.eu " websites on this subject. They tell you what kind of application there is in which country and where you can get the vignette.

For example, the car we rented on our trip to Austria had a vignette. "Vignette" is glued to the driver's side of the windscreen from the inside. Whatever the validity start date of the banderole, they pierce the month and day parts on the banderole to correspond to that day.  When taking delivery of the vehicle, I would also check whether the "vignette" is valid. Since you will be travelling to Slovenia later with that car, we had to buy a "vignette" suitable for there. As a result of the research we did on the websites I mentioned above, we learnt that we could get a "vignette" for Slovenia from the "Austrian Highways Directorate" building, which is very close to the place where we took delivery of the car. Speaking specifically for Slovenia, you can get a "vignette" for a minimum of 7 days and the fee was around 20 Euros if it was not increased. Always keep the purchase receipt or invoice they will give you that you have bought a "vignette" with you.

• Also, even if you have a "Vignette", there may be motorways that you have to pay an additional fee. They can charge extra tolls for motorways that are very costly to build. There is no need to do a detailed research, but they also give information about the tolls on the website " www.tolls.eu "; you can take a look if you wish. Since we had to use the motorways passing through the Alps, we paid toll in two places in Austria. One of them was 8 Euro and the other one was 12 Euro.

• Before you arrive at the toll booths, they warn you with big signs, indicate the fee and direct you to whichever toll booth you need to enter according to the class of your vehicle. There were officials at the toll booths we passed through; you could pay by credit card or cash. In Slovenia, they directed the vehicles with "Vignette" to a place at two or three toll booths and since we had "Vignette", we passed through without paying any additional fee.

• In Europe and Balkan countries, you must always have your headlights on even during the day or you will be fined. Also, always obey the speed limits. Always give way to pedestrians and cyclists. They have the right of way. At the same time, in traffic, priority is always given to vehicles in roundabouts, which is a national traffic rule. It is usually ignored in third world countries, but pay attention. You must first give way inside the roundabout and join the roundabout when the road is clear. In addition, you must signal when exiting the roundabout. If you do not signal and you come across an officer, you will be fined.

• Speaking of Balkan countries, don't fall for this old trick. A vehicle or a pedestrian approaches you. He tells you that there is a problem with your vehicle and usually smears the oil he has prepared beforehand on the area he will show you until you get out of the vehicle. You may rightly think that the vehicle is leaking oil. And this seemingly helpful citizen tells you that there is a mechanic just up ahead and after keeping you there for a few hours in vain, they tell you about a price of 1000 Euros for repair. Then they negotiate down to 300-500 Euros and you walk away thinking that you have made a good bargain. However, there are actually no changing parts in your car. In case you have a problem with your car, you should definitely forward it to the road assistance & technical service unit specified by the company you rented the car and follow the steps they will direct you.

• I hope you don't have any accidents, but if you do, it is useful to know this. Let me give an example from an experience that happened to us several times. Let's say you are waiting at a red light and someone hits you from behind. In this case, do not change the location of the vehicle. First, take 5 or 6 photos from your phone from different angles so that the number plates of both vehicles are visible. Contact the necessary traffic police of that country for the accident report. Make sure you have the driving licence, insurance and contact details of the other party. Immediately after reaching the police, call the company where you rented the car and follow the necessary directions. For this reason, keep your seat belt fastened even at short distances. Stay calm even if you experience a short shock for a few seconds. At the same time, this may actually be a theft method, while you get out of the car, a second person can come from the right side and take your bag, phone, etc. Or if the key is on the car, they can even steal the car and you may have serious problems with insurance because the key is on the car. To prevent this, always keep all of your belongings locked in the boot. Carry important things such as all phones, wallets, passports in a leg bag. Also, if you are going to get out of the vehicle, stop the vehicle, make sure you pull the handbrake and get out. Do not leave the ignition key on the vehicle. Take the key and put it in your pocket, lock the vehicle after getting out and get away from the vehicle. If you are in a secluded place, do not stop because this is a method of car theft. It is important to take out full insurance in these situations, as it allows you to continue travelling without thinking about stopping. 

• Please note that in European countries it is generally required to have as many phosphorescent safety vests as the number of people in the vehicle in case of an accident. If there is no vest, there is a traffic fine. One vest costs around 3 euro. If you are renting a car from European countries, ask the company about this. There is usually 1 piece in vehicles. Do not forget to provide as many vests as the number of people.

• I left the longest article to the end. Even if you pay attention to the rules in the countries, sometimes you can be fined. Even if it is not your fault! Although we have travelled almost all of the European and Balkan countries by using a rental car or motorbike, we have not been fined even once. However, in Tbilisi, Georgia, we have been fined for one stopover with a penalty written arbitrarily by the police. In this case, they usually reach you via watsap application and notify you of the situation. In this case, tell them that you want to pay the fine yourself. Ask them to send you the link to the official institution of that country where you will pay the fine. Pay the specified amount using a virtual credit card and send the receipt to them both via watsap and to their official e-mail address. Thus, you can avoid possible problems. 

• Because our friends got a wrong parking ticket by leaving their vehicles in a place where they should not be parked in Italy. As I said before, the car company blocks a collateral fee when renting a car from you. Although the penalty fee was deducted from this blocked money, the penalty was not paid by the company. Months later, they received a mail at home that they had to pay the fine. They could not reach the authorised units for weeks to object and had to give up and pay the fine for the second time. Since we witnessed this situation, we wanted to pay the fine ourselves and it was more guaranteed. I hope you will not be fined, but in case you encounter such a situation, do your own work yourself and make sure that you are doing your job. 

• As an additional information, we said that the fine we received in Tbilisi was actually a completely arbitrary practice of the police. So how do we know that this stopover fine in Tbilisi is arbitrary? When we entered the vehicle's licence plate into the system, every time the vehicle was rented, it received thousands of parking tickets in total somewhere in the city. The police usually give a small or large fine to all vehicles with a rental car licence plate. Fortunately, since the amount was small, we didn't care and didn't bother to object. This kind of things happen very often. Now I don't want to give the names of the countries, but in many countries, police officers especially stop vehicles with rental car licence plates and even ask for bribes. This happened to us a few times. In this case, you need to stay calm and negotiate well. Do not be stubborn with the police, be reasonable and negotiate. Know that they always settle for less than the price they say. Whatever they get from you is profit. For this reason, do not give the first price they say. We have not encountered such a situation since we have been using a dashcam (actually go-pro) for a long time. 

• Not in the Balkans, but in most petrol stations in Europe you fill up the petrol yourself, self-service. Then you go and pay for it. Don't be surprised if you come across something like this for the first time.

• Of course, all these items should not intimidate you, although we have rented a car hundreds of times, we have actually had quite a few incidents. The freedom of being free with the vehicle, going wherever you want, taking a break wherever you want at any time provides the perfect feeling of freedom. All this is worth it.

Now let's take a look at the answers to the questions you may have in mind for those who will rent for the first time:

•  More than one driver can drive the vehicle. This is called the second driver system and is an accepted practice in all companies. If the second person who will drive the vehicle meets the necessary qualifications required by the company in terms of driving licence, age, etc., do not forget to define two drivers to the system by paying the price difference. If you are involved in an accident and you are not behind the wheel at this time, you are in serious trouble. The average daily price of an additional driver is around 10-20 euros.

In the past, you were usually given an empty tank and you would be vaguely nervous until the first petrol station to avoid being stranded. At the same time, you delivered the tank as empty as possible. Now, for many years in all companies, the system has turned into delivering a full tank and delivering it full, which is definitely more logical. Let's say you are about to miss the plane or the petrol station is too far away, you can still deliver the vehicle in this case. However, in this case, in addition to the fuel price, the refuelling service fee will be charged to your card. 

•  You also need to wash or have the car washed when you deliver the vehicle. If you bring it to be washed and dirty inside, you will be charged a car wash fee. These are available in the contract articles. 

•  You can cancel the reservation according to the conditions specified by the rental company. While some companies have a withdrawal fee, some companies have the right to free cancellation. You need to take a look at the relevant company details.

•  One of the most important details is "Km limitation", for example, there is no km limitation for Nakiko. There is a limit of 1860mile or 3000km in Sixth fraction. If you exceed this limit, it is priced at a certain cent for each kilometre travelled. This limit is actually sufficient. However, sometimes it can be a problem if you plan a multi-country trip. We exceeded these km limits on our Europe and Balkan tours. For this reason, if you are going to make such plans, you can roughly check the city you will visit and the routes you will visit on the "google map" application. If the total mileage is too much, you can leave the first car you rented at a branch on the way and rent a second car from another reliable company there.

•  You have the chance to deliver the vehicle to another branch other than the branch where you received it. You even have the chance to deliver to another country.  However, this happens within the framework of the rules determined by the companies according to the countries. In other words, for some countries you only need to stay in that country, while in Europe or the Balkans you can easily change countries. This is called one way application. It is a method we often prefer. Of course, prices will vary according to the size of the distance where the vehicle will be left and the date.

•  If you are crazy enough to travel with children, yes, you can rent services such as baby and child seats for an additional fee.

•  If you are going to change countries during your European and Balkan travels, be sure to inform the company. This is called Cross-Border travel. Some companies do not support this kind of service or are not allowed to enter some countries. You also need to get "Green Card" insurance from the branch where you pick up your car. I don't remember the exact price because we had it done long ago, but it has a very reasonable price of around 50euro.  If you use the vehicle in a country that the company does not allow, the vehicle will be considered outside the scope of insurance and in the event of an accident, you will have a lot of financial and legal headache.

•  If you are going to change countries, make sure that there is no diplomatic crisis between neighbouring countries. For example, you cannot cross the border from Serbia to Kosovo or from Kosovo to Serbia for a Balkan tour. After Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia, there is a serious diplomatic crisis between the two countries. Serbs must be so offended by this situation that vehicles with Kosovo licence plates can travel in Serbia by hiding the country belonging to Kosovo on their licence plates. For this reason, we travelled from Serbia to Kosovo after including Macedonia again. 

•  During car hire, they ask for your credit card details and a security deposit is mortgaged. Although the mortgage fee varies according to the number of days when renting a car, the segment of the car, etc., it is usually around 1000 Euros. Even in luxury vehicles, 4x4s, this price goes up to 2500 Euros. They want this fee from a credit card on your behalf and in one go. Alternatively, if you have unlimited insurance for 20-30 Euros per day, this block is usually around 300 Euros or 1000 Euros if it is a luxury vehicle. Of course, these companies will vary in price even between branches. After delivering the vehicle, the block is usually removed within 7-10 working days. However, it is useful to know that in some banks the blocking period can extend up to 1 month.

•  I hope you will never need this information in your life. However, if you experience an accident or damage, stay calm and inform the authorised traffic unit of that country. Then contact the car hire company and report the situation. They will inform you for the whole next process, follow the necessary procedures.

•  Finally, if you did not get your driving licence in a country of the European Union, you need to get an "International Driving Licence" in addition to your chip licence within Europe. For this reason, find out the requirements of the country you are travelling to and prepare the necessary documents and keep them with you. The international driving licence is not a substitute for your driving licence in your home country, you must carry both documents with you. Be aware that if you do not have the document with you, you will be subject to a criminal and legal sanction equivalent to driving without a licence.

I wish you safe, enjoyable and good driving in advance.