Aspect Car Rental BlogNews and views about car hire and rental world wide.

So…you are driving the West coast of America and you end up in Phoenix!!

Phoenix is the Capital of the state of Arizona and is the fifth most populated city in the US with a population of approximately 1.5 million in Phoenix proper with about 4.3 million in the “metro area”.

Phoenix is nicknamed “The Valley of the Sun”. Located in the northeastern reaches of the Sonoran Desert, Phoenix has the hottest climate of any major city in the United States.

The average high temperatures are over 100°F (37.8°C) for three months out of the year, and have spiked over 120°F (48.9°C) on occasion. Despite these high temperatures the Phoenicians cope very well with the heat.

Most people have air conditioning in their homes, their cars, their schools, the shopping malls and just about any public place. After the shock of your monthly Electric bill……..the worst part is getting to and from your nice cool air conditioned car and if you flew in make sure your hire car is air-conditioned..!

Sometimes though,  it takes a while to cool it down if it has been sitting in an open parking area for a couple of hours in 100 degrees!! This is why covered parking garages are plentiful in Phoenix..USE THEM..you’ll thank me.

Phoenix is also a winter home to “SnowBirds”..these are the people from the colder climes (Canada, Minnesota, Colorado,Wisconsin, Idaho etc etc) trying to keep out of the snow, and whilst the Phoenicians sometimes whine and moan about the influx of “out of state” license plates on their roads, and not being able to get a seat in their favorite restaurants, the Snowbirds do generate a fair amount of extra income for the State.

As you would expect in a major city, phoenix has no shortage of “culture”. Museums, Performing arts, Parks and Recreation, Fine arts and Cuisine (LOTS of cuisine!!) Just about anywhere you turn in Phoenix, you can find a restaurant of some sort..from Sushi to Indian Fry Bread and anything in between. There is quite a large Hispanic population so Mexican cuisine is plentiful and good if somewhat “tailored” to the American palette.

(More on specific restaurants that I frequent in part 2 !!)

Driving past Velez Rubio, the land becomes more ochre in colour , yellows and beiges predominate and the mountains have receeded so you drive through flat land bounded by mountains in the distance.

The autovia is I have to say pretty boring to drive through, with only occasional small farms and ruins to break the monotony. One thing about Spanish motorways though is the frequency of their Via de Servicio’s (Service areas) where you can get food and drink and for you and the family as well as fuel for the car.

You will often find small hotels attached which have full restaurants and unlike our motorway services in the UK, these restaurants are well patronised by the locals, especially on Sunday lunchtimes.

As you head towards Lorca you begin to descend and the air heats up, even in the winter months.  At Easter time, if you visit Lorca you will be able to witness the procession, two brotherhoods, white and blue compete with each other. The procession includes elaborate floats, horses brought in from all over, musicians and amazing costumes, capes and standards created by local craftsmen and sometimes taking years to finish.

Past Lorca and it doesn’t take long for the traffic to build up on the approach to Murcia. this is an old city which is still very Spanish and doesn’t have the large ex-pat communities which mean shops and restaurants catering to British tastes.

That’s not to say there are no ex-pats, just that they are in smaller numbers and more integrated into local life.

Now you can drive from Malaga to Murcia in a day but if you do, you will miss so much. Take a few days and stay overnight in Granada because really, you must visit the Alhambra, it is a magical place but beware the gypsies who crowd the car park offering to tell your fortune. They are very persistent!

Then take a day or so to get to know the ‘troglodyte’ village and surrounding area. Staying in Velez Blanco will give you breathtaking views of the countryside as it’s almost at the top of the world.

So there you have it, take your hire car and explore the hidden interior of Spain, I promise you won’t be disappointed – well unless you want beaches of course

Half way to Murcia driving through the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas in our hire car and we come out of the pine forests and begin to drive through mile after mile of open plain. We’re still fairly high above sea level and our hire car has to struggle to get up some of the inclines (note to self – next time hire a car with a bigger engine!)

Here the scenery is more open, in spring though it can be breathtaking with wild flowers growing in huge swathes across the land, almond trees are in blossom and their perfume fills the air.

Looking back towards Granada and you will see snow capped peaks where skiing is still in full swing, yet where in an hour or two at the most you could drive back down to the sun drenched beaches around Malaga to swim in the waters of the Mediterranean sea!

In some places you’ll see small farm houses, or ruins dotted about, sometimes you’ll drive past small white washed villages but what you won’t see is many animals, at least not the domesticated sort!

One place worth stopping is the Troglodyte village just out side Guadix, where many of the houses are built into the clay hills, they dig out the clay to make pots, then live in the dug out man made caves!

Surprisingly the houses created this way are quite spacious plus being well insulated. The beauty of them is that if you want more rooms, you just dig out more space.

This place is famous for its pottery and you can get some real gems as long as you choose wisely. That is, there are a lot of very cheap ‘touristy’ stuff that is churned out which is not as good as it could be but hidden amongst all the ‘tourist’ stuff, you can find some real gems.

I found two matching beautifully decorated hand basins and a fabulous cooler dish to hold plenty of bottles of beer or wine for a BBQ. The prices were great and the workmanship good.

From Guadix you start to pass more habitations and start to see more industrialization as you approach Chirivel, then the two Veliz towns of Veliz Rubio and Velez Blanco.

Veliz Blanco is up in the hills behind Velez Rubio and boasts an amazing castle which is outlined against the sky, at night if you’re lucky it will be lit and looks like something out of legend.

So, we’ll finish the trip in part three!

Spain is one of those countries where you can still enjoy driving, the roads are very good (much better than the UK generally) and unless you’re in the cities or driving on the autovia (motorway) around a city, the roads are not too crowded.

We visited the area between Granada and Murcia up in the mountains of Andalucia and were amazed at the majestic scenery. Because we were visiting friends we were unsure whether to hire a car, how glad we were that we did!

We flew into Malaga airport and after checking our hire car we drove up towards Granada, on the way we passed the beautiful little town of Antequera and stopped to have lunch in the restaurant under the bull ring. Rabo de Buey (oxtail) is their specialty and I have to say it is one of the best I’ve tasted in Spain.

It’s a very rich dish so salad is a great accompaniment along with (if you’re not driving) a bottle of full bodied Spanish red wine, lots of bread to soak up the delicious sauce and if you have room after some home made flan.

As we were driving and had a couple of hundred kilometers to go, we did without the wine and the flan!

Once past Antequera you drive through rolling hills of olive trees and rich red earth, this is the land of olives and large haciendas. The road up to Antequera is not so good but after, well after that it’s a dream to drive on, well surfaced and little travelled.

Being on the autovia of course means that you bypass the small and interesting villages and small towns, although there are many that lay close to the autovia and so you can decide to drive through if you wish.

In these villages you’ll find many a little local bar/restaurant that will serve delicious local food at very reasonable prices. In many it’s still the custom to serve a small tapa with a glass of wine or beer, but not with coffee or hard liquor.

Granada itself is a very large inland city with it’s own airport and as you approach it you find more traffic on the roads, be warned the Spanish, like the Italians are in the main very fast drivers! They seem to ignore the speed limits in many cases but if you’re in a hire car you really are better off keeping to the speed limit. Especially if the car is unfamiliar to you and it’s your first time driving in Spain because you’ll need all your attention on the roads!

As for speed limits, you need to watch for them as they can be different for different road conditions, slower if there’s snow and at night. So keep your eyes open.

Once past Granada you drive through gorges in the mountains and here you can see fantastic colours in the earth, from grey to ochre, deep vibrant red or deep purple and subtle combinations of any of them.

The hill sides are covered in pine, wild olive and almond and the ground abounds with wild herbs, mostly rosemary and lavender. Take a breath and you can smell the clean fragrant tones of earth, sky and water.

The road passes rivers and areas of nature reserve, with the clear blue of a Mediterranean sky, the fierce yellow of a Spanish sun and not very much traffic you could almost persuade yourself that you’ve entered a time warp – until of course a huge truck passes you going in the other direction or a local driver comes up behind you and passes so fast you almost don’t have time to see him!

All this and we’re only half way to our destination!

Part two coming shortly!

A lot of people get confused about insurance when they book car hire, whether on line or by phone. Mostly because in the UK and many countries in Europe we’re used to terminology like ‘fully comprehensive’ rather than ‘fully inclusive’ which is what many car hire companies use.

So what is the difference? It has to be said, not a lot, with ‘fully comprehensive’ it generally means that no matter what happens to your car and no matter whose fault it is, your insurance company will pay for repair or replacement.

It is usual for there to be an excess that you pay and this excess will be determined by many things including your driving record, how much you pay for your insurance cover and the dictates of the insurance company.

With car hire insurance it’s very similar but not always the same. For example, most private insurance policies will cover the underside of the car and the windscreen. Commercial car hire insurance however does not generally speaking. Tyres are not covered at all in either case so you need to be aware of this and to check what the excess is (and it will often be different depending on the supplier).

It is possible in many cases to ‘buy down’ the excess when you hire a car and it will be a personal choice for you depending on circumstances and exactly what the excess is. However, in many cases although you can ‘buy down’ the excess, this doesn’t mean you don’t pay it at all! Often it means that should you have an accident of some kind, you will have to pay the excess locally and then claim it back under the terms of the ‘buy down’.

Is it still worth doing? That is something that only you can decide but ask yourself this, how many people do you think each year don’t do it under the assumption that ‘it won’t happen to me’ only to find it does happen?

In the UK the usual excess is £500 no matter which car hire company you’re with and it costs a lot less to waive it than to pay. So again the choice is yours!

Are you going to Malaga this year on holiday or for business? If so have you thought about car hire? Last year there was a shortage of hire cars in Spain and especially in popular destinations like Malaga!

Although the economic climate is blamed because many car hire companies have reduced their fleets or, kept older cars on fleet instead of replacing them, it has to be said that they’ve probably not suffered as much as other industries.

Why? Because their product is now in short supply and you know what that means! Yes, the price goes up! They make more money per hire now because of that shortage and if you’re one of the unlucky people who waits until they get there to hire a car, you’ll probably end up paying as much as 50% more than you would have paid if you’d booked your Malaga car hire early.

Can you enjoy your Malaga holiday without a car? Well of course it is perfectly possible to enjoy a visit to Malaga and not have a car but, if you do decide to hire a car then your enjoyment will be enhanced!

Apart from the many miles of beaches there are so many places to visit around Malaga and a hire car can help you with that. Small villages up in the hills, where time seems to have stopped, up market places like the Malaga Gun and Country Club.

Just driving in you hire car along the coast road either east towards Nerja and the amazing caves there, or west towards Marbella and the playground of the rich and famous. Whichever direction you choose to take when you get to Malaga, car hire will help you make the most of your trip!

I have mentioned before about booking early yet many people still think they’ll get a better deal if they make a last minute booking, how wrong they will be!

All the major companies are cutting back on their fleets and some of the smaller companies are not only cutting back, they’re keeping the cars much longer than the usual 6 months.

This means that especially at busy times (July and August) hire cars are in very short supply. The Independent had an article online about the shortages that happened last year, especially in Spain, where prices for these two months doubled when people were trying to book a car near their time of departure.

There are three basic ways to book car hire, wait until you get there and hope for the best, imagine the horror though when you turn up with kids and mother-in-law in tow, all tired and uncomfortable from the flight. Especially when instead of a car you get told there are none available and you must take a taxi to your final destination!

Secondly you can pre-book, this where you say you’re going to arrive and pay for the car but don’t pay any money,  you can still turn up only to find that mysteriously no car is forthcoming.  You’re then back to the first scenario where either you will have to pay well over the normal rate to actually get a car or take a taxi.

The best way then is to not only pre-book but to also pre-pay by credit card for your hire car, this is by far the safest way to ensure you actually get a car on arrival.

The earlier you book the car the better rate you will get because there are a finite number of cars in each location and they’ll make more money from late bookings, it doesn’t work like flights where the plane is going to be flying anyway!

When booking car hire, many people wonder about also booking child or baby seats at the same time, often they can’t decide whether to take their own or rent one from the car hire company.

The problem arises when they think that they can make a last minute decision and book a car seat on arrival. Because of course they can’t possible store enough car seats for every vehicle, some people may need one seat, some two and on odd occasions three will be needed.

Remember that in many countries if you have children under a certain age traveling with you, the law demands you use a child seat for them, so you need to be sure you have one.

In the States it can sometimes work out cheaper to actually buy one from somewhere like WalMart than to hire one, especially if you’re stay is over two weeks but, you do have to have something as soon as you pick up the hire car so this option is not always practical.

Many people choose to take their own baby seats as the baby can travel in it safely and be strapped into a plane seat (if they’re flying out on holiday) instead of having to sit on Mum or dad’s lap all the time. Child seats are another matter though and with the restrictions on luggage and the hassle of carrying so much ’stuff’ it makes more sense these days to make sure you book one at the same time as you make your car hire reservation.

Are you the early bird that gets the best car hire deals? It’s surprising how many people believe that waiting to book their holiday car hire will save them money, rather like waiting for last minute deals on flights!

Yet it’s a completely different thing, planes fly independant of how many passengers are booked (unless of course none are booked) so at the last minute an airline may decide to sell some seats cheaply.

Car hire though is different, the hire cars can stay where they stand, ready for ‘walk in’ bookings (where people just walk in to see if there are any cars available) without the rental company having to put fuel in or staff them. There is also the fact that the car hire companies have cut back on their fleets, making fewer cars available for hire.

So to get the best car hire deal you may want to think about early booking, because it means that you are more likely to get the car you want rather than what’s left,especially if you want auto transmission or a ’speciality’ car like a convertible or minivan.