Turn the key to adventure!

The handover takes ten minutes, then the car is yours for the week. Here is how to start the trip well.

Walk around the car with the agent. Photograph every existing scratch from your phone, in good light. We do this together, but having your own copy is faster than digging through email later.

Set up the sat-nav before you pull out. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto work in every car in our fleet. Put your hotel address in first, then your dinner spot. The first ten minutes of city driving is not the time to be tapping a screen.

Find the fuel cap and the gear shift. Sounds obvious. Most rentals are manual unless you booked otherwise. The fuel-cap release is usually on the floor by the driver’s door or built into the cap itself.

Drive once around the block before leaving the car park. Mirrors, lights, blinkers, brakes. Any issue, come back and we will swap or fix it.

Plan a short first leg. First drive: a beach forty minutes away, not a mountain pass two hours out. Build up to bigger trips on day two or three.

Then it is just driving. The hard part — booking, paperwork, insurance — is already done.