Three (Very) Simple Things to Look for When Renting a Car for a Road Trip

Storytime! This little tale is a series of unfortunate events and divine intervention. It also taught me the basics of what to look for when renting a car for a road trip. You’d think that I would have thought of these things beforehand, but I did not. Thankfully, I live to tell the tale.

One of my best friends, Madison, moved to Spain after college to teach English for a couple of years. I, of course, went and visited her. For the second part of our trip, we decided to rent a car and road trip from the south coast up to the Picas de Europas on the northern coast of the country. So we did just that.

Hanging in Malaga for a couple of days before hitting the road

The experience was the trip of a lifetime. We started in Malaga, and drove up to Salamanca, a quaint little town, before spending a couple nights up in the mountains. In order to maximize our hiking time, the plan was to spend extra days in the mountain range and then drive straight from the north to the south coast, ending up right at the airport so I could fly back to the U.S. If it sounds like a crazy plan, that's because it is. I’ll most likely write some stuff about the hiking trip in another blog, but for now, the focus is the twelve-ish hour drive from Poncebos back to the Malaga airport. Here’s the route to give you a little insight into what that trip looked like.

Malaga road trip from Malaga to Salamanca to Hostel Poncebos to Toledo back to Malaga

We awoke early on departure day, sore from hiking over 30 miles over the past two days (that’s not a brag, that is an indication of the rough and horrendous state our bodies were in), fully unprepared for the twelve-hour car ride that lay before us. We started our journey in the rental Volkswagen SUV, heading south on the AP-6. Here’s the thing about driving in a different country (this is not a tip, just an observation): it is so hard. Like, I’m not that great of a driver to begin with. Trying to drive in a country where I don’t speak the language or know the road signs (they are very different) is really… let’s go with challenging. Madison is fluent in Spanish but traveled via public transport, so she had no need to know the road signs before this trip. We made it work and only pissed off some drivers, probably. Moving on.

We made it to Toledo and allowed ourselves a bit of time to explore the city and eat a yummy dinner. The sun was setting when we got back on the road. Trying to be cognizant of the time, we planned out when we could stop and how long it would take to get back to Malaga, which was approximately five hours. Not so bad, or so we thought. We would make it in time for my early morning (red-eye) flight and everything would be swell. This brings me to point number one:

Make Sure Gas Stations Are Open

I debated making the header always keep your gas tank at least half full, but it doesn’t have quite the same ring. I do firmly believe that, when embarking on a road trip, your gas tank should be filled. When you’re out in the wilderness, you can never really be certain where the next gas station will be, so it’s best to have your mode of transportation be able to transport you.

However, this thought process did not cross my mind since Madison and I were driving down a major highway. It would be like taking US-23 or I-5. There are bound to be gas stations. And you know what? There were! There was an abundance of gas stations on the AP-6. They just weren’t open.

Here’s the thing you need to know about Spain. Gas stations along the highway usually close around 10 pm. When I looked it up later, I found that gas stations are said to be “self-serve” but the payment methods can be complicated. I did not find this to be true. I found that self-serve didn’t really work because, at most gas stations, you pay an attendant who is gone when the gas station is closed. So we kept driving past vacant gas stations, our hope depleting as fast as the gas gauge. By the time we pulled into one with a single light, it was pitch black out and a light drizzle sprinkled the air. The self-serve was obvious, and this one had a card reader! We started to pump… and nothing happened. We just stood there, holding the gas pump, as gas did not flow. Our glimmer of hope was shot down hard. So we got back into the car and drove on, praying for a miracle.

I feel the need to mention a second tip here.

Have a Phone Charger that Works

You may be wondering, why didn’t you just Google where to find gas? I have an answer. It’s because, in the U.S., many phone chargers are still USB-A. In the EU, for some godforsaken reason, they have already converted to the more “progressive” USB-C in cars. If you have newer Apple products, you’re set to jet! But if you have an “outdated” phone and only have USB-A chargers, you’re screwed. See the difference below (thanks Logotech).

The very clear and obvious differences between USB types. We only had USB-A. The car only had USB-C.

So not only were we running out of gas, we were running out of charge on both of our phones and needed at least one to direct us to the airport. This trip also taught me the valuable lesson to keep road maps in the car. You never know when your phone might die when you’re driving in a foreign country with no idea where you’re going. So, yes, we did look up some gas stations, but the effort was futile and the more we searched the further our batteries dropped. So we left it up to fate.

And then, a miracle happened. We saw a gas station with every fluorescent light shining down through the rain like the heavens. We pulled off the highway and went straight to a gas pump! We filled up, bought a phone charger, and were ready to head out!

The sad view from the outdoor outlet in the back of the gas station where I charged my phone

We turned on the car and plugged the phone in. No charge. Which was weird, considering it was a brand-new phone charger. Not to fret, we just exchanged it for another. We plugged charger number two into the USB-C port. No charge, yet again. As Madison spoke with the woman at the register who was clearly frustrated with us, I searched for an exterior wall plug to charge our phones for twenty minutes before taking off.

That’s about the time when a nice Portuguese man attempted to communicate with me through hand gestures. What I interpreted as a friendly hello was actually him informing me that the back tire was completely and utterly flat. The thoughts that ran through my head as I went to the trunk to get a spare went as such:

Oh no, I’m going to need to change this tire! Do I know how to change a tire? I’ve never changed a tire before! It’s raining and I’m about to change this tire and I have no idea how what am I going to do!

This brings me to the third thing you should do when renting a car for a road trip…

Make Sure There’s A Spare Tire

I opened the trunk, shoved our bags out of the way, and flipped open the hatch that holds spare tires. When I opened the hatch in this rental, all I found was the perfectly fitted mold that a tire is supposed to go into. And no tire.

When I say the tire was flat, I don’t mean it lost some air and it would be a bumpy ride. I’m talking hubcap-scraping, zero air, Donald’s Tire Trouble flat tire. Honestly, all I could do was laugh. Here we are, after finally finding a gas station while driving on fumes, and we have a flat with no spare. It was a cosmic joke! I’m not even kidding! Like… how was that possible! Thank goodness, the nice Portuguese man/angel was there to save the day. This is the divine intervention I was talking about.

The rental car that ended up not having a spare tire plus me, ignorant of what was to come

Turns out the man whose name I, unfortunately, do not know, is a mechanic in the ol’ west-coast county and has his fair share of experience working on cars. There was one small issue: he spoke Portuguese. Portuguese and Spanish (and English, but that’s pretty self-explanatory) are very different languages. As fluent as Madison is in Spanish, she did not and does not know Portuguese. But it honestly worked out so well. We tried to communicate and after a couple of unsuccessful attempts, he just took over.

Tire sealant similar to the one used to fix the back tire

He found a tire kit- which is a thing that exists, apparently- in the back of our car. It’s basically this tire sealant goo that you can pressurize into a tire so it holds some air for a little while (see screenshot for a similar product). And by a little while, a few miles until it can go to a mechanic. We had about 100 miles, but we didn’t have another option. He filled up our tire, wished us the best of luck, and sent us on our way. He was and is a true angel.

If, for any reason, this is translated into Portuguese and he has the chance to read it: thank you, kind stranger, for helping two girls stranded at an off-highway gas station in Spain. You saved our day.

And it’s true, he did. We crested the southern hills and saw the gleam of orange city lights spiderweb down into the valley and towards the Mediterranean. We pulled into the airport, all four tires (kind of) intact and after a few tearful goodbyes, I was back off to the States.

I hope you learn from this story, even if the lesson is to never road trip with me because these are very obvious things to take note of prior to a trip. But I had to learn these things myself! The result was an exhilarating adventure that taught me the important basics of road-tripping, and I haven’t looked back since! Other than the gas tank part. I’m not sure I’ll ever learn how to keep my tank about 1/2. Oh well, maybe another story will come of it…