Advice for planning my trip
I’m planning a trip in March 2027 and thinking of landing in Rome, staying two nights, renting a car and driving to Florence for a few hours then driving to Venice to stay for a night or two. From Venice I’d like to go to Vienna, preferably driving, take some stops on the way like some F1 tracks (I’m not sure which ones - my husband is a fan and is going to look at which are on the way), spending a night or two in Vienna, then traveling to Munich (again, any F1 tracks along the way for my husband) and spending a night or two in Munich.
I’ve heard that renting a car in one country and turning it in to another country is expensive, but we’re from California so we love road tripping. The idea of road tripping through Europe sounds like a lot of fun for us.
Perhaps we will rent a car to get from Rome to Venice and turn the car in there, then rent a car in Austria for our adventures there, turning the car back in at a different city but within the same country.
We’d like to do a little exploring of the alps too which would be fun in a car. Any advice on the car renting plans? Any advice for places to visit along the way? My husband only cares about the F1 tracks and the experience of driving, but I like museums, castles, pretty sights, and vegetarian meals (I recognize that I might be eating a lot of plain pasta on this trip, but if anyone has good vegetarian spots I’d love to know!). One spot I think I’d like to stop to look at the sights is Triglav national park for example.
I’d also love to know if it’s better to hotel or Airbnb in many of these countries. We like an Airbnb simply because eating out for every meal is expensive and we like to cook so sometimes we’ll Airbnb so that we can cook our own dinner, but other than that we can recognize that Airbnb can be a plague in many of these cities. It can also be not what you expect.
What is it like to cross country lines between each of these countries? If we turn each rental car back in before we leave each country we will take a train across the borders.
I’d love any advice!