As I reported, Romanian car rentals came to about $100 per day, which is why I looked for alternatives; and low price airfares to Budapest were to be found, while Bucharest did not have any.

Michael did get a better deal than I did on the car out of Budapest. Not sure I recall our exact price though. We'd gone with Budget/AutoEurope. Went out of Budapest for the same reason he did though - the cost of rentals in Romania.

Once we realized what that was going to run, we widened the search and when we thought about how we'd rather start and end in Budapest than Bucharest anyway, that was the decision.

We did a thing where we knew then we were going to enter in the north and exit at the south (by Arad & Timisoara) or vice versa. So I looked for car rentals in both areas thinking we could take the train into Arad or Satu Mare and came up empty in both places. Except for one company that *looked* like they had locations all over Romania, but in reality were delivering the car from Bucharest with a hefty surcharge.

Anyway, so as far as I know, I don't think any of the major US or European agencies had an outlet in Satu Mare back then (2005). But, I wouldn't go so far as to say you couldn't find a local agency that could help you out. In other countries (most recently Spain), we've even found new car dealerships that would rent one of their convenience vehicles out for a day or two, plus mileage. So never say never...

Enjoy your trip.

Just as my husband talked to 2 agents with AutoEurope re a rental in September, I discovered this post. AutoEurope confirmed we can not rent a car in Romania and go out of the country but if we rent the car in Budapest we can go anywhere we want from Romania south and then north returning car to Budapest. Cost $100/day. AE says they will cover insurance but we need to bring a confirming letter from AE for the rental personnel in Budapest.

Now my question, hope much will the average hotel room cost in Romania, Bosnia and Croatia ? I take it the cost will be able the same in surrounding countries ? thanks.

My recollection of the 3 week rental cost in 2005 was about $600 (euro was $1.21 then) total.
Poprad was quite industrial. Bardejov Tourist Info office has maps to the "wooden churches", which as I recall numbered about 20 within a 20 mile radius. Spis Castle is BIG!!

I think is better to rent a car than going by train or someting.
I used rent a car services a couple of times and i had no problems. Check out www.rentacarbucharest.com and www.rent-cars-bucharest.ro

We just rented a car in Budapest, took it all the way to Constanta, Romania, and back to Budapest. We had it 3 weeks and it was an automatic- a Mercedes SRS I think. About $900

thanks for topping this again. this is a flanner classic. priceless.

Are there any car rental companies in Poland that let you take a car into Romania? I checked with AutoEurope and SixT and neither one allows it. Why is that?

Try Thrifty or Hertz. Thrifty gave me the best price when we took our rental to Romania from Hungary; but I do not remember if I used Thrifty's international site or went directly to the Hungarian site.

Could be because there's less demand coming all the way from Poland, so no need to justify the risk. More people asking in Hungary = potential for considerable business by saying yes? Rental companies in Europe are often franchised by country, so there's no consistency between countries on rules like border crossing.

And there IS a bit more of a risk to a car than elsewhere. Road conditions might justify the attitude, if not concerns about auto theft (don't know on that one, despite what Hungarians would say when we said we were crossing the border. Never read a trip report where it happened).

Driving in Romania though is a bit different than much of Europe, if nothing else due to how many road hazards you're dodging on a given day. Lots of livestock and slow moving horse carts and such.

In addition to Michael's suggestions, if those don't work ou, you could try Budget. That's who we were with. However, Autoeurope is a broker that has deals with a bunch of different rental companies, so if they arent' finding anything, you may be heading for a let down on that front.