After spending a couple of days in Edinburgh, we plan on renting a car for the next 8 days. The end of our journey will be at the Glasgow airport where we have booked a hotel.

What would be the best location to pick up a car rental- in the city or outside of the city?
We are staying at a B&B on Gilmore Street quoted as a 10 minute walk from Princess Street. When we check out of there, we need to get ourselves to a car rental place. We have been told it would be best to get a rental on the outskirts of town rather than driving in the city traffic.

We will be returning the car 8 days later to the same location, then getting a train to Glasgow. So, then we will need to find our way to the train station after dropping off the car.

I have car rental locations of 10 Picardy Place, 5 West Park Place, 42 Haymarket Terrace, 39 Roseburn Stereet, and the Edinburgh Airport.

Can anyone help us out?

Is there a reason not to drop the car at the Glasgow airport? Hertz, at least, is very conveniently located - walk to the terminal. I would expect the other rental companies are just as convenient.

I like jsmith's idea. However, if you will run into drop off charges by renting in Edinburgh and returning to Glasgow airport, you might consider taking a train to Glasgow when you are finished in Edinburgh, picking up the car there, doing your 8 days of exploring, then returning to Glasgow when you are ready to fly out.

We just took a taxi from our hotel on Princess Street to Edinburgh airport to pick up our car. There is also a shuttle bus from Waverley Station, I believe, that goes to the airport. If you do a search on google for Edinburgh airport, I think there is a link to transportation info.

I'd also suggest you return the car to Glasgow airport. There shouldn't be a drop charge since we rented in London and dropped off in Edinburgh without one.

We have considered the option of picking up and dropping off at Glasgow airport. Either way, it's a bit of an inconvenience. We plan on spending our last day in Glasgow before flying out, so figured it would be just as convenient returning the car to Edinburgh, then taking a train to Glasgow, spend the day in the city, then take transport out to the hotel at the airport, though we will have to deal with storage of our luggage while in Glasgow.

Re: drop-off charges- we have been quoted 35 GBP as the fee.

Bettyk, what car rental agency did you use?

On a trip a few years ago, we rented from Hertz in Edinburgh at the Picardy Place location. It was not far from the train station (which is how we arrived) and returned it at another location (Perth) with no problem or extra charges, if I remember correctly. It was a little hairy getting out of Edinburgh, (I do the driving) but, we survived and I will be renting from them again....same location in May!!!

We had a similar issue a couple of years ago. I opted to pick up the car at the Edinburgh airport to avoid city driving. The driving from the airport (heading to Durham) was very easy. The car was returned to the Glasgow airport to fly home. There was no drop charge from Hertz. The trip had started in Glasgow then we took the train to Edinburgh.

Some agencies do impose drop off fees. But the majority do not. I've rented more than 40 cars from 6 or 7 different companies in the UK and have only had drop off charges a handful of times. Try autoeurope and see what they have regarding drop offs.

But - even if there were a &pound;35 fee - it <b>still</b> makes much more sense to pick up the car in Edinburgh and drop it at GLA. Otherwise you are schlepping back and forth across the country on the train from Edinburgh to the center of Glasgow, then out to the airport

We used Hertz.

To avoid city driving, we took the bus to the Edinburgh airport (cheap and easy) and picked up our car there.