When it comes to driving abroad, it doesn't matter whether you're a complete novice or a seasoned pro, you want to find the best car at the best price.  You want peace of mind and the backing of a name you can trust. Don't risk a company you've never heard of, go with one of the big players and you won't go far wrong.

Which One?

There are so many car hire companies operating in Spain, that you can get bogged down searching around. Do you go for the cheapest, deal or the biggest company?  It doesn't follow that a car rental company working out of the back of a van in the airport car park is going to give you a better deal.  In fact in most cases, the opposite is true.  Big car rental companies have such huge buying power that they can pass on tremendous savings to the user.  I've been renting cars in Spain for the past twenty years and I must admit, I used the airport van boys for quite while.  I figured that they must be cheaper because they had such low overheads, WRONG.  When airline company easyJet announced that the were going into the car rental business with easyCar, I wanted to see what they were offering and what I saw made me realise that cars with far better specification were on offer for less than I'd been paying three years earlier.  This was a no brainer, great cars, great prices and a simple to use website. There are special deals from only £12 a day with unlimited mileage, and full insurance cover.  Don't dither, do it.

I was sitting in a bar and I got chatting with an old English guy sitting next to me.  We brought up the subject of driving in Spain and he told me that when he first hired a car about ten years ago, he drove out of the airport before he'd studied the map properly and missed his  turn off for Benidorm.  He didn't know he'd missed the turn off and continued driving.  The road then became the main motorway to Madrid and he thought that soon he would be seeing some signs for Benidorm.  After about 5kms he saw the first exit which was to a place called Salida. Having never heard of Salida he carried on.  For any non Spanish speakers, Salida in Spanish means exit.  After about another 5kms another sign for Salida which he thought must be quite a big place.   Still no sign of the Benidorm turn off so on he went.  Another 10kms went by and another sign for Salida, he was now confused.  How could a man over sixty who has read the paper every day and watched the news, never have heard of Salida which must surely be one of the biggest places in Spain if not the world.   His curiosity got the better of him and he took the  next Salida exit.  This led to a toll booth where very fortunately, the attendant could speak good English and pointed out to him that Salida was not a place and that he'd traveled over thirty kilometers in the wrong direction.

The moral of this story is that you should always study the map before you set off.  Don't rely on the passenger, trying to grapple with a full map of Spain covering about six sheets of A4, to find your destination any time soon.  Chances are you'll be 10kms past your turn off before he realises he's looking at Portugal.

A Couple More Tips

Driving in Spain is easy but  there are  a few little quirks in the Spanish driver's mentality which are worth noting.  In England, traffic lights are sacrosanct.  We will stop at a traffic light at 4am in the middle of nowhere without another car for miles around.  Us oldies were brainwashed years ago that amber and red mean the same thing, stop (remember the amber gambler ads back in the seventies?)  In Spain things are different, the Spanish driver has no such respect for the traffic light, they are treated  as an inconvenience not a safety device.  Spanish drivers will very rarely stop on amber and many go through on red.  I'm only telling you this because being English, you're very likely to stop on amber.  This is fine when you're trundling along with nothing behind you.  If you stop on amber when traveling at a fair lick with cars behind you, the chances are that the  driver of the car behind will be so surprised that he won't have time to stop.  I know a couple of English drivers new to driving in Spain that this has happened to.

Roundabouts

Roundabouts are a relatively new concept in Spain.  In recent years they have been enthusiastically employed, even in places where they haven't really been necessary. A sort of corn circle phenomenon.  The Spanish authorities spend thousands of euros on making roundabouts look attractive, as if that was their main purpose.  There are statues, palm trees, bushes and all manner of flora and fauna decorating even the smallest of roundabouts.  This can restrict the driver's view of how much traffic is on the roundabout.  Some Spanish drivers have still not grasped how roundabouts are supposed to work  and will drive straight on believing they have right of way.  Confused drivers already on roundabouts will sometimes give way to cars approaching, believing they have right of way.  There are still a few signs around warning motorists approaching a roundabout  that "you don't have right of way" which is a bit scary.  You will sometimes see drivers parked on roundabouts studying maps, oblivious to the bedlam around them.

Zebra Crossings