Category: Europe

We’d hired cars in Europe at least 15 times before we’d even heard of the DVLA code.

It came up when I was going through the booking notes for a hire in Cyprus, reading the list of documents to take with us. There it was, listed as required, and I had no idea what it meant.

My first thought was that we’d been missing something for years. My second was that it might be specific to Cyprus, or just to that particular car hire company. So I went and looked into it properly.

We’ve hired cars no less than 15 times across Europe in places such as Germany, Portugal, Spain, Rhodes and Cyprus, and each time the trip has hinged on getting that one bit right.

A family road trip in our own vehicle is a completely different creature. We can throw in whatever we like, stop when we like, and fill the boot with food to keep costs down.

Fly somewhere and pick up a hire car instead, and you’re working with tighter margins on space, time and patience, usually after an early start and a flight with two kids who are done with sitting still.

The good news is that car hire abroad sounds far more daunting than it is, and the driving itself is rarely the hard part. The planning around it is where trips get won or lost, and after enough airport desks, tiny village streets and wrong turns, we’ve settled into a way of doing it that works.