Car Rental Outside London En Route To Dover

[I&MsMom]

We will be staying in London several days, then we want to spend the night before the cruise in Dover. We'd like to do some sightseeing, including Canterbury and Leeds Castle.

 

I don't want to rent a car (or drive!:eek: ) in central London. Should we take the train to Dover, rent a car there, and then backtrack to Canterbury, etc. Or, is there a logical town along the way where there is a car rental company within close proximity to the train station?

 

I greatly appreciate any advice any of you are able to provide. BTW, we aren't going until 8/08, so there is no great rush! Thanks!

[SeaBop]

A few years ago we rented a car and had the driver from the rental bring it to our hotel in London and drive us waaaaay out of the city. He got out at a train station and we then took over. Driving in England is pretty scary.

 

What we're doing this trip in September is sharing a 4-5hr one-way minvan tour with another couple on our cruise. We have plans to stop at Leeds and Canterbury on the way to Dover.

[haggis]

I would think the easiest option would be to hire the car in Dover. Its no great distance from Dover to Canterbury or Leeds Castle. Both are just off the M20 motorway and if you are not used to driving on our side of the road, the motorways in the UK are your best bet. (and safest)

Driving out of London to get to Kent can be a nightmare with traffic and is, in the main, two way traffic until well out into the suburbs.

If you want a look at the proximity of these locations with regards to the M20, try

www.streetmap.co.uk this site should give you a fair idea what driving is involved.

Jimmy

[I&MsMom]

Thank you for the replies. I should have told you that we are planning to make the trip from London to Dover on a Sunday morning. I was wondering if it would be an easier trip at that time of the day/week?

 

Thanks again. I think, in the end, it would be easiest to take the train to Dover a rent the car there.

[pcur]

We rented a car (SmartCar....what FUN!!!) from Sixti, and it was great dealing with them. If you search on their web site for locations along your route, you might want to just tube out of London, pick up the car, and drive to Dover.

 

We drove around the Coventry area for 5 days, driving first from Stanstead airport over to Coventry, and back again 5 days later.

 

If you are in London for a while, find a bookstore and buy a good, detailed UK road map book. If you are not accustomed to driving in the UK, you'll need it. One person needs to be the navigator, calling out the route numbers as the other drives.

 

DH took about 15 minutes to get accustomed to left hand driving. We saw a movie once where someone explained it very easily: always make sure the driver is in the MIDDLE of the road. Think left at intersections, but there aren't many: you mostly have roundabouts. Make sure going into them you know the road number going out, and look for it. Worst case is you turn around at the next roundabout, go back, and do it again at the roundabout you messed up with.

 

We tell our friends we saw a lot of the lovely English countryside.....most of it unintentional!!:D :D But, we had soooo much fun there!

 

Enjoy!

[I&MsMom]

Peggy: LOL! We drove in England many years ago, and the one thing that we eventually caught on to that really helped was that there is no rule which says you can only go around the roundabout once. So, around and around we go until I've sorted out exactly which "exit" is the right one! :p

 

Thanks for the info on Sixti. I'll check out there website.

[Globaliser]

Should we take the train to Dover, rent a car there, and then backtrack to Canterbury, etc.

If you're staying in Dover, forget about a car to Canterbury. Just take the train from Dover. The fast train (once an hour) only takes 15 minutes, and the slow train (once an hour) takes less than 30. This way you don't have to deal with parking hassles in Canterbury.

 

Leeds Castle is a bit more difficult by train, though. There is a coach service that picks up and drops off at Bearsted station - see the bottom of this page. But the page is not very specific about whether you can get the all-in-one ticket for this from Dover. You can get to Bearsted from Dover by changing trains at Ashford International. However, it might be less hassle overall to just rent a car in Dover for this trip.

[MAKEM]

Peggy: LOL! We drove in England many years ago, and the one thing that we eventually caught on to that really helped was that there is no rule which says you can only go around the roundabout once. So, around and around we go until I've sorted out exactly which "exit" is the right one! :p

 

Thanks for the info on Sixti. I'll check out there website.

 

I love your quote on our roundabouts......some Brits do this quite deliberatley if the road markings do not allow them to take the exit they want....round again and then they find they can!

Only spoilt by the fact so many roundabouts on main roads have traffic lights as well now.