Moving to Denmark: Renting a Car

Danes love riding their bikes. There is no question about it, so it would seem logical for them not to buy cars or even rent them. However, that shoe doesn’t always fit. First of all, many of these Danes live in cities, which makes it easier to use a bike because of the closeness of things or the difficulty in parking. Second of all, living in a city can be expensive, so bike riding is much cheaper than a car.

What did we do? We rented. When you live a few hours from your husband’s family, live somewhat in the countryside and have two kids to cart around, a car is a good idea. We weren’t really sure how much we would be using the car, so we decided to rent instead of buy. We went to a local car rental store, much like you would find in any country. We had done some research online to find the car that would fit us and made all the reservations over the computer. The car was waiting for us when we got to the store. My husband, being the caring man that he is, ordered an automatic car for us. I have only driven a stick shift a couple of times in my entire life, which happened to be 20 years ago, so I didn’t want to have to worry about one more thing to learn right off the bat. Thanks, honey!

The car we decided to go with was a Toyota Yaris. The first foreign car I have ever driven besides a VW. I was excited that it was a hybrid, since I’ve never driven one of them before, and I really liked that it was small. My old car was small, which fit my 5’4″ body perfectly. I just wondered how my 6’4″ husband would fit in this car comfortably with two kids in the back seat.

I have to say that it wasn’t without a small bit of anxiety that I had to drive the car back to my mother-in-law’s house. Denmark is home to the roundabout, which is, of course, something that exists everywhere, even in my town in the U.S., but I wouldn’t say that I have that much experience driving them. Part of me kept thinking of the scene from European Vacation where Clark Griswold got stuck in a round-about in London. “Look, kids! Big Ben!” Classic!  I wasn’t really afraid of getting stuck in the round-about, but I was a bit more concerned about causing an accident. Needless to say, everything worked out just fine! It was actually kind of nice. Imagine, after traveling multiple times to Europe over the course of 20 years, I was now finally driving a car in Europe! Another surreal moment.

Luckily, I also did some research on car seats before I left the U.S., since European car seats differ from American. First, in the form of asking Danish friends what they use for their children, and then second, checking those brands/styles online. I knew that Denmark can tend to be expensive, so I thought I would try to find them on Amazon.de, which is the German site for Amazon. I’ve ordered things online from them before and had them sent to my mother-in-law’s house, so I knew that it would work for these, too. I spent a few weeks watching Amazon for the price to get the lowest and then bought them (Them meaning two seats: one for each kid.). I had them sent to my MIL’s house where they were waiting for us when we arrived on the first day.

With the new car and car seats, we were ready for our first trip that weekend to Scandinavia’s largest camping and vacation expo. Let the excitement begin!

(Side note: Because we couldn’t rent forever, and it appeared that after we moved to our new hometown 2 1/2 hours from my mother-in-law’s that we would need to buy our own car. We bought a used car about a month after moving. Buying used was the way to go, since the tax on cars is outrageous!)