Renting a car has never been that easy with all the mobile applications available to find and get a car in France. In this article, we will see how to rent a car in France.
🚙 Car in France
The car gives you the freedom to go anywhere. You will need a driver’s license B to be able to drive a car.
In France, you will need to pay tolls for using the highway. You can pay them directly on the highway. However, if you don’t want to pay any toll to use the French roads, you can use exclusively the trunk roads (Route Nationale) which are the road beginning with N (Nationale).
In France, you drive on the right side of the road. The speed limits on French roads are usually:
| Highway: | 110-130 km/h |
| Trunk roads: | 80-110 km/h |
| Paris streets: | 30 km/h |
| Other cities streets: | 50 km/h |
📆 Car Rental: Rent by the Day/Week
If you need a car by the day or by the week, a car rental will be perfect for you. The car rental agencies are usually located throughout the city, in railway stations as well as in the airports. Here are the different mobile applications I recommend to rent a car:
🔎 Get the best prices from car rental agencies and comparators
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Kayak helps you get the best prices by comparing the different car rental agencies’ prices. The app is even comparing the specialized rental car comparators themselves so you are sure to have the cheapest price. You are then redirected to the car rental agency of your choice to rent your car.
Usually, you will be able to cancel up to 2 days before the start of your rent.
Moreover, the cheapest cars are usually the ones with huge excess car insurance in case of damage (1,000€ at least). You only have access to these cheap cars by paying with a deferred debit card (carte de crédit in French). Then, you have a more expensive car rental, but you will have fewer constraints and you will be able to pay with a debit card. You should check the conditions before paying.
💡 Premium credit/debit cards (Visa Premier, Mastercard Gold, etc) include car rental insurance. This insurance will reimburse you the excess you paid in case of damage. Thus, if you pay with a premium card, you won’t need to get the car rental insurance option advertised by car rental companies.
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🏪 Rent a car 24/7 with your smartphone
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Virtuo offers to rent cars 24/7 with a mobile application only. Their cars are usually available at railway stations.
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🤑 Rent a car for cheaper than usual car rental companies
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Get Around
With Getaround, you can rent cars owned by individuals. Some cars can be unlocked with the mobile application without needing to do the check-in with the owner of the car.
⚠️ If you book a car with Getaround and pay with your premium card (Visa Premier, Mastercard Gold, etc), you won’t be covered by the car rental insurance included in it.
You should compare with normal car rental agencies’ pricing because it might not be as advantageous as theirs, because you don’t have unlimited mileage if you expect to go long distance, or insurance coverage with the premium cards if you know that you have a high chance to scratch the car.
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📱 The Essential Mobile Apps
Here are the different mobile applications I recommend to optimize your car journey:
🛰️ The navigation and live traffic app to avoid traffic jams
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Waze: Have Your Speed Limit
Waze: Find a Gas Station Around You
Waze is a mobile application acquired by Google, which guides you to your destination, by taking into account the real-time alerts from its community (hazard, police, etc).
The app will notify you of the speed limit on the road you drive in real-time, and alert you if you exceed the speed limit.
You can even find the cheapest gas station around you, thanks to the community updating the price of the gas in the application.
It is a must-have application for all drivers in the world.
⚠️ You should definitely have your smartphone connected to a source of power: your battery will be drained during the usage of the application.
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💸 Estimate your itinerary costs on fuel and tolls
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Michelin ViaMichelin will estimate the cost of your itinerary in terms of tolls and fuel.
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🤑 Lower your travel cost by carpooling
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If you have free seats in your car and you want to share the cost of your travel, you can offer seats in your car on BlaBlaCar which is the worldwide leader in carpooling services.
The service is secure thanks to its rating system for the drivers and the payment which is done online.
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Conclusion
To know more about other ways to travel from Paris, you can check this article:
