Hi everyone,

I am based in the US and am visiting Europe for 10 days (mainly Austria) and am renting a car for 5 days mainly to visit a few places in Austria. I booked a car via AutoEurope and was told that they cannot provide a GPS along with the model (Compact).

Can you please recommend any companies from which I can rent a GPS for 5-7 days when we are renting a car in Europe?

thanks!
subbu

Sat nav units are so widely available these days, you're probably best just to buy one off of the internet preloaded with European maps. Either buy it retail or have a go on Ebay if you've got the inclination. I can't imagine that one can hire them that cheaply, so buying seems a sensible option.

Or of course upgrade the car to one with sat nav already built-in.

A couple of weeks ago, I rented a car from AVIS with GPS (extra charge) at Stuttgart Airport. But it turned out that the GPS was almost completely useless, because as soon as I left the autobahn I was "off road". The GPS did not know even major roads, it did not know the airport, and even in major towns, it did not know any single street.

The reason was that it was a cheap, first-generation GPS which operated with an old-fashioned CD-ROM. And AVIS had equipped the car with a CD for whole Europe, which meant that there was not enough memory on the CD for roads and streets except motorways.

So it might be a good idea to take a portable GPS system with you. Make sure that detailed European maps are installed and that the GPS has a memory which is large enough (e.g. a 2 GB SD card).

Usually, the map software comes in separate files which are loaded once in a time. This means, if you have loaded the map of Germany and you want to drive to France, the system would not know the French destination. Therefore, some maps come like this "Germany plus major roads of Europe". Then you can get directions from Germany to France, but when crossing the border you should load the French map.

The GPS from Tom-Tom, e.g., have both types of files: Germany/Austria/Switzerland WITHOUT any other European roads and Germany/Austria/Switzerland WITH major roads of Europe. The difference is the size of the files. This is the reason why you need a memory of 2 GB.

Sounds a little bit complicated, and it is indeed. So, when you purchase your GPS, make sure

(1) that it includes maps of all European countries,
(2) that each map includes major roads of Europe,
(3) that memory is sufficient.

Check the offers carefully. Sometimes you will be offered a GPS for, say, 279 Euros with maps of D/A/CH. Any additional map, however, will cost you 150 Euros! So it is wiser to buy a GPS with pre-installed maps of Europe for maybe 299 Euros.

There is another trap: Europe sometimes means "western Europe" only and does not include Poland or Czechia.

Thanks very much for your detailed replies - it is very helpful!

AutoEurope does rent GPS units as a separate agreement from the car. We did rent a GPS one time from them and liked it so much decided to buy one, the feature rich Garmin 370 which is fully loaded with both European AND North American maps.

DickM:

Garmin is a good example. Garmin sells models with 500 MB, 1.6 GB, 2 GB, 3 GB and 4 GB memory, some with maps of Germany and Czechia, others with D/A/CH, others with Western Europe, and others with Western Europe + North America. So, look carefully.

BTW, Garmin 370 is no longer available, but Garmin 270 and 670 have maps of Europe and North America.

AutoEurope is NOT a rental car agency, it is just a broker. So it may happen that you will get a car from AVIS with a useless GPS.

Traveller, If you check the AutoEurope web site you'll see that after you make the arrangments for the car rental you can can then have the opportunity to rent a portable GPS. It is sent to you in advance of your departure.

Btw, the Garmin 370 is still very much available through many retail and online sources.