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Turkey to Greece: Rental Car ?s

I will be on my very first tour to Turkey and Greece for around Two.Five weeks this May. My bf and I will be staying in Istanbul for the very first four days and then we were hoping to rent a car to possibly take a day tour down the Turquoise coast and then head rearwards along the coast of Greece. I am having a bit of trouble finding a company that will let me check rates or make reservations online for this sort of excursion. Any suggestions on companies I can look into? We were hoping to fly out of Athens back to IST for our flight home, so the rental is basically a one way situation – is this a problem for the rental companies? Would it be better to take a ferry across to Greece possibly and then rent a car there to get to a few locations?

Thanks for any help you can give – I wish I had Two.Five MONTHS to be there!

|There is no car company that will permit to take the car to Greece.

The distance from istanbul to Athens is about one thousand two hundred km.

Even if you should find a car rental permitting you to do this, they would have to send someone to Athens to pick up the car and bring it back to Istanbul.

You would have to pay for all the expenses such as ticket from IST to ATH, gas, overnight and meals of the driver on his way back to IST.

Getting to Athens and renting a car there, is i think the best that you can do

www.economycarrentals.com is based in Greece (I believe) and brokers rentals in Turkey. It might be the best company to give you advice on rentals.

Thank you both so much for your quick responses! I will look into both of those plans. I have done so many extensive road trips across the US and I love exploring inbetween two main points of interest. It is a entire fresh practice when the country next door is just a few hundred miles away and you can’t necessarily just take the car wherever you go

Michael, this is not a Greek company..

As i said NO car company will permit someone to take a car from IST to ATH, and even if they hypothetically would, the cost would be astronomical .

Are you actually telling that once you reach your southernmost destination on Turquoise Coast you will then turn around and head back north, driving along the Aegean, the western border of Turkey, then head west into Greece to Thessaloniki and then south to Athens, then fly back to Istanbul for your flight home?

BLL i understood that they would take the car to mainland Greece with a boat. which theoretically speaking would be doable, but unluckily not permitted by any car company.

( plus the fact that cars on boats are never covered by any insurance)

Clausar, from what I read I have a different understanding of their proposed itinerary than you do based on the question: “Would it be better to take a ferry across to Greece possibly and then rent a car there to get to a few locations?”

hm. got your point BLL.

i would embark with studying a map very first.

and then i would have a look at www.travelmath.com to calculate the distances. and then i would most likely find out that what i had in mind cannot be done.

Wow, I’ve got to say I’m astonished at the snarkiness in response to this question. I undoubtedly have spent a lot of time studying the geography of the region in the hopes of taking a driving tour. Therefore, I can only assume that I am totally mistaken in my research that there emerge to be roads connecting Turkey and Greece, via their collective border. I will note the switches on my maps!

Yes you are correct! I was talking about *possibly* driving further south from Istanbul into Turkey (maybe to Ephesus?) for a day or two (or that could be accomplished via the options of train/bus I have already looked into) and then backtracking North and East thru Turkey, and Southwest along the coast of Greece – but truly the objective was to leave directly from Istanbul in a car and drive down thru Thessaloniki, to Athens, and maybe even to Kalamata or possibly to Lefkada.

I am just being ambitious – hoping to see the places my family is from and possibly to see my extended family, whom I have never met. I know much of this tour will be edited down to the must-dos and not be so unattainable.

It’s under seven hundred miles if we embark from Istanbul to Athens via the routes I mapped – which is exactly the route you mentioned, BLL. This is not far to drive over the course of a week and a half, with time to stop along the way and see some more of beautiful Greece. Indeed, my question was just about bringing a rental car across the Turkish/Greek border in a one-way rental not about ferrying rental cars. I was just asking about ferrying us – two people – from Turkey’s western coast to Greece, in the hopes we could somehow squeeze the coast of Turkey into this journey.

With all the differing state laws regarding insurance and driving in the US, national companies do still permit you to cross state lines in their rental cars. I guess I was just nosey if two countries might have these policies in Europe. Doesn’t hurt to ask, right?

Thanks, BLL, for your interest in my question!

The very first thing I would do would be to contact the international department of companies such as Autoeurope, Avis, Budget and Hertz to ask about crossing borders. You never know, they might have some sort of accomodation for this.

i checked with our fav rental site, kemwel, and it shows ‘no dropoff in greece online. however– i would call them because they are so very helpful and real people (as in they indeed work with you.) they may have some ideas or creative solutions. kemwel uses agencies like hertz and autoeurope– but they will strike any rate you find. aside from that, i have just always found them to be super helpful. they should be able to give you the total scoop. much luck.

those are excellent suggestions – thank you brotherleelove2004 and kawh!

You will find that it truly is unlikely to take a rental car across borders from Turkey into the EC, especially on a one way rental and vice versa, because of both customs and insurance regulations. As far as i know all the major car rental companies like Avis and Hertz have licencies in Turkey rather than possessed operations, which makes it truly, indeed unlikely for them to provide any international assistance.

There’s an even better alternative.

Hertz, Avis, National, they all have offices in Alexandroupolis, which is very close to the turkish border.

It’s getting less ( two hundred Euros) in case of Thessaloniki-Athens.

Lotsofcats, I didn’t see any snarkiness whatsoever in the replies to your question – just a genuine desire to help, but confusion over your intentions. I couldn’t make out what you dreamed to do either, as the Turquoise Coast of Turkey and Thessaloniki in Greece are in opposite directions from Istanbul, and that would mean either doubling back or taking a ferry. It’s difficult to display emotions in a forum post, which is why I make liberal use of smilies.

Amazing, and again – thanks everyone. I had gathered from reading the forum previously that people have indeed good info to share and you guys are quick.! That is all amazingly helpful and the info will be put to good use.

In an unexpected twist, I am going to London for six weeks for work and will very likely be pushing my Turkey/Greece vacation back a few weeks. and maybe even getting to extend my stay in both countries. Looks like this spring and early summer will be nothing brief of a major venture. I couldn’t be more thrilled

Thanks for all these words of advice.

yesmaybe, for one thing, there are major problems with trains leaving Istanbul. So that is not an option.

otherchelebi, thanks. If no train (why?), and no cross-border car travel, how did you travel around, and reach Eniz, which seems off the main highway (bus route)?

From Istanbul your only choices are either a bus to Greece or flying to Thessaloniki.

In addition to Clausar’s response: we drove to Enez from istanbul combining that excursion with other interesting sites.

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