If you caught Michelle’s recap a couple weeks ago you’ll know one of the highlights of our one week itinerary was renting a car in Greece. It gave us SO MUCH FREEDOM. We’re obsessed with how easy it was to get around especially when in the end, it saved us money versus taxis to and from the airport.
Renting a Car in Greece
The first point to note when renting a car abroad is that you’ll need an International Driver’s License. This is really easy to get from AAA for only $20 plus the price of passport photos if you’re a member. With our International licenses in hand we were ready to go.
Kefalonia
Our first car rental was on the island of Kefalonia. We arrived late thanks to our 5 hour delay in Corfu so we rushed to the Avis desk just in time. The roads in Kefalonia (as we saw in the light of the next day) are very windy and often on the cliffside. Michelle was white knuckling the steering wheel for the hour long ride in the pitch black to get us safely from the airport near Argostoli to our hotel in Fiskardo.
Kefalonia turned out to be the highlight of the entire trip. Having the car made the entire island approachable and we spend the next day exploring.
Fiskardo
Fiskardo was an adorable seaside town and harbor lined with restaurants. This was a great “home base” for us and even though we explored in the morning we came back to the quaint town to grab dinner after we explored all day. While the town was fairly low key in May, we heard from the couple sitting next to us a dinner that come August, the entire city will be filled with tourists.
Asos
Asos was a short drive from Fiskardo and once again an adorable seaside town. It was smaller than Fiskardo but very picturesque with colorful buildings like the one below. It was a great place to stop and try a lightly boozy smoothie one of the restaurants was serving.
As we drove from town to town, the road sat up on the hillside to wind around the island. To get to a town we’d turn and start slowly descending down to the seaside.
Myrtos Beach
Myrtos Beach was located a short drive from Asos on the northwest side of the island. The drive down to the beach was a mile and a half of twisty road.
Once we finally made it down, the beach was rocky with perfectly blue water. One thing to note is that once down on the beach there was no food or shops, so make sure to stock up on everything you need before heading down.
Sami & Melissani Cave
Sami is a port city and where we grabbed our ferry to Patras the next day. Located nearby is Melissani Cave. We thought this was going to be much more “rustic” than it turned out to be. We had planned to hike into the cave—hence why we packed tevas—and hire a boat to take us into the cave itself. Turns out, this is a tourist destination like any other and was extremely easy to walk down a short ramp into the cave where a boat was waiting for us. This was definitely worth seeing and only 7 euro each.
Poros/ Skala/ Argostoli
Since we had the car and the rest of the afternoon we took our time driving the southern coast of the island. Skala is a resort town and felt much more touristy than the others we visited. Argostoli is one of the largest cities on the island and located close to the airport. While it is still a small city relatively speaking, it had a lot of cute restaurants, bars, and shopping.
While we loved our trip around Kefalonia, our luck landed us a tiny red Fiat convertible in Patras and getting to drive that around, gave Kefalonia a run for it’s money. We loved this tiny car so much it inspired us to start shooting our own car commercials like the one below. That, or it’s because we totally missed all the things to do in Patras and were making our own fun.
We made our way from Patras to Athens, stopping at little towns along the way.
The only hard part was actually fitting our bags in the tiny tiny trunk:
Overall we LOVED renting the cars. It gave us the freedom we wanted and let us go at our own speed. It was an easy process and other than getting the International Driver’s License, we had no issues what so ever. I would highly recommend it and suggest anyone do the same!
We’re already dreaming up our next vacation that may let us rent a car and explore the same way. If you happen to work for Avis, hit us up, we’d love to do this again.
Do you like renting cars abroad? Have any great stories to share with us? Let us know in the comments.
