Car rental in sardinia : our tips

adminonJune 4, 2022February 11, 2022Leave a Comment

The sunny island of sardinia is an autonomous region of italy with a population of almost 2,000 inhabitants.000 km of coastline, sandy beaches and a mountainous interior with hiking trails.

the island is very popular with tourists because of its beautiful coastline. Along the almost 1850 km long coastline you can find many secluded and romantic places. Moreover, you can benefit from the varied landscape and the imposing mountains.

The arrival in sardinia

The three international airports that can be found on the italian island of sardinia are cagliari-elmas in the south, alghero-fertilia in the northwest and olbia costa smeralda in the north. With a rental car you can explore the island independently. The best thing to do is to check out the best car rental deals before you travel to your destination. By comparing prices you can get the best offer in advance and enjoy the comfort of a car on vacation.

What types of car rentals are available?

In sardinia you will find three types of car rental companies: of course, like everywhere, you will find large direct car rental companies such as sixt, national, hertz or others. Another possibility are the car rental agencies. These are also called brokers. Since they do not have their own fleet of vehicles, they arrange the cars of the direct suppliers, for appropriate discounts. However, rental cars are also often offered by local, small direct providers. You can compare all offers on comparison portals to find the best car rental in the end. Reviews of the respective rental companies also give you a good impression about the quality of the providers.

Here’s how to go about finding a good car rental:

You should ask for a rental car as early as possible. Book the car with all the extras you want.
When searching for a car, you should, if possible, specify different pick-up locations, rental period and date, in order to find the best offer.
It is best to choose an offer with fully comprehensive insurance and without deductible.

Should I book the car in advance or on the spot??

You can book a rental car both in advance and on the spot. It is advisable to find a rental car before you travel, as this will save you stress. For many vacationers the rental car is an indispensable companion, since an own vehicle can bring you flexibly to the most beautiful sights of sardinia. With a rental car you are not dependent on schedules and you can enjoy a great comfort of independence.

At first glance, booking a rental car on the spot doesn’t seem like a bad idea. On the spot you have a direct contact person and after arrival you can decide spontaneously if you want to rent a car at all. Unfortunately, spontaneous car rental on the spot is not recommended. If you don’t take care of your rental car until you get to your destination, risks can arise and prices can go up. That’s why you should book a rental car from home in a relaxed way before you travel.

Some reasons to book before your trip:

You can compare prices and make real savings. You will not have time to compare all offers on the spot.
You benefit from guaranteed availability, because you know in advance whether the car is available for rent for the desired period or not. In popular vacation destinations, rental cars are rarely available on a spur-of-the-moment basis during the high season.
You can clarify all questions in advance, because you can ask a contact person in your own language. It is rare to find a local car rental company that speaks english or german.
You benefit from the advantages of a booking according to german law, if you book a rental car in germany. It does not matter where or in which country you pick up the car.

Should I rather book with big chains or local providers?

In order for everything to go according to plan with the rental car, the rental company must be the right choice. Reliable and good providers stand out z. B. By a quick help in case of complaints, as well as professional service on the spot from. Each offer receives a meaningful rating, making it easier to make a decision. These evaluations are made up of several important aspects. The included insurances, the complaint behavior of the operator as well as the ratings from the customers belong to it.

To qualify an offer as very good, it must have at least 8 out of 10 points. The customer rating in the form of asterisks is additionally displayed with each offer. The 1 to 5 star rating refers exclusively to the rental company. Therefore, you should browse through the reviews given by other customers. This is worthwhile, because you get an authentic impression of the landlord. Offers that have at least 4.1 stars are considered recommendable.

It is not only the big international chains that have a high level of customer satisfaction: local suppliers also have interesting offers, even if sometimes the choice of rental cars is not so wide. It is therefore worthwhile to also read the reviews of smaller, local providers in order to find the best offer for your rental car.

amela.dimnik on Instagram - roadtrip Sardinia

What are the approximate costs?

There are several factors that affect the cost of the rental car, including:

Choice of pick-up location
Choosing the return station
Vehicle selection
Duration of the rental
Means of payment and age
Protection packages and extras
Gasoline costs
Pick up at the station
After the rental: fuel charge, mileage included, costs associated with infractions and damage to the vehicle

All of these factors affect the final price of a rental car, as each customer’s preferences and needs are different. The most important thing is to be well insured or to have a good insurance. To choose a comprehensive insurance package, as this will save you greater costs in the event of a claim.

What do I have to pay attention to?

To avoid complications with your rental car, the first step is to use comparison portals to find the best offer. In addition, you should only consider offers with fully comprehensive insurance. This way you can save a lot of money and stress in case of a claim.

Also pay attention to the deposit, which is meant as security for the landlord. A certain amount will be blocked on your credit card. In case of fines that are not paid immediately, the police will contact the car rental company. Afterwards, the landlord will debit the amount of the fine and his own processing fees from your credit card.

Furthermore, it is advisable to rent the car with a full tank of gas and return it with a full tank of gas. Before taking over the car, it is advisable to check it yourself for any possible damage. You should take a picture of this to be on the safe side.

Our recommendation for a car rental in sardinia:

If you are looking for a rental car in sardinia, you are well advised to use the travel agency "sea sardinia vacation". The 2018, from jolanda melis founded company "sea sardinia vacation" offers among other things possible car rentals. with about 20 years of experience on the island, the company offers free advice as a german speaking tour operator and rents various cars at fair prices. If you want to know more about their company, you can find everything else on meersardinienurlaub.Com read.

Surely there are other local providers that are ideal for your round trip in sardinia. Read the reviews, compare the conditions and find the right car rental company for you. We wish you a pleasant stay on the italian island of sardinia and always a good trip!

TECHBOOK expert andreas filbig no longer thinks much of mobile navigation systems photo: getty images

By andreas filbig | 23. May 2021, 13:14

For a long time, mobile navigation devices for cars, which you stick on your windshield, were indispensable for many people. TECHBOOK editor in chief andreas filbig believes that the time of these devices is over and navis will soon end up in the electronics graveyard next to walkmans and video recorders.

Navigation devices are practical and facilitate the orientation in road traffic immensely. Long gone are the days of car atlases, paper maps or printed route descriptions. Simply ran to the windshield, enter the destination and off you go the journey. Drivers spend between 100 and 400 euros on a navigation device. But this should soon be the end. Two main reasons will seal the demise of mobile navigation devices, says andreas filbig.

Reason 1: smartphones navigate just as well

Smartphones and their navi apps are the ultimate opponent for mobile navigation devices. A final opponent that they are already failing against. Just about everyone has a smartphone with a free map app in most cases google maps or apple maps. And these bring advantages.

Smartphone is fast- navi expensive and slow

In addition to the obvious price savings of a free app compared to the purchase cost of a navigation device, the smartphone also offers other advantages. Anyone who has ever used a mobile navigation system will be familiar with the situation: entering the destination takes a long time, and by the time the right route has been found and you can finally get going, your patience is stretched to the max. apps like google maps are faster every step of the way, from turning on to entering data to finding routes. In addition, smartphones can also be used for navigation as pedestrians, for bicycles and for public transport.

Supposed advantages do not exist

For a long time, the great advantage of mobile navigation devices was their usability abroad. Add to that the high data consumption of smartphones when navigating. smartphone navigation has already eliminated both weaknesses. Maps can now be downloaded and used without an internet connection. This means that you can navigate not only abroad, but also without significant data consumption. Even if the maps are not stored on the cell phone, data consumption is lower than expected. For a half-hour drive, only 10-15 megabytes are used in the worst case, according to the app. With the volume tariffs with several gigabytes, this is hardly of any significance.

Reason 2: competition from within the ranks

The second reason for the extinction of portable navigation devices comes from their bigger brother. More and more vehicles are coming from the factory with navigation equipment built in. This, of course, completely eliminates the need for a mobile device. Frequent drivers, who still like to rely on classic navigation devices, often drive larger, long-distance cars and choose a fixed navigation system for reasons of convenience. The increasing number of these navigation devices in cars is here to stay.

Conclusion on the mobile navi

Mobile navis are in the grip of fixed competition and smartphones. In the short or long term, the units can only lose this battle. There is already no real need for it today. New navis are already approaching smartphones, integrating voice control for ease of use, a SIM card slot for faster searches, and bluetooth and smartphone connectivity. A last attempt to stay alive that will fail. Instead of investing in a mobile navi, it’s more worthwhile to buy a smartphone holder for the car.

a good ten years ago, apple had already identified the car as the third most important place to put the ipod (!) uses. This device not only serves as a mobile player and can be integrated into the stereo system in the living room, it also offers skip-tuning. despite all of apples initiatives, cooperations with car manufacturers and the establishment of new standards, the iphone integration into the car is not progressing as one would like it to. The reason is banal: a new car is bought far less often than a new iphone and then the connection of the mobile radio to the in-car system is not the main criterion for the purchase. Our family car is about year of construction 2008. The construction took place probably sometime in the years 2003 to 2007. At least there are accessories that can be retrofitted for a lot of money: essentially a cable with a dock connector (!) what connects ipod or iphone to the integrated stereo system. It has a decent radio and a CD player, but not USB, not bluetooth, not even an aux-input. In fact, you would have to buy a new car or at least a new radio, but that’s beyond your vacation budget.

But in order not to be dependent on the radio on long journeys – the main stations with the traffic radio all play the same program – there are alternatives to bring your own music to the loudspeakers. Two require a little accessories, the third a little preparation. Advantages and disadvantages they all have.

Method 1: funky music via FM radio

long before apple approached car manufacturers about integrating the ipod into the car stereo, peripheral manufacturers came up with the idea of sending the music signal from the ipod to the car radio via FM radio. Small, compact devices for the dock connection or headphone output are already available for little money, the sound quality is more than sufficient for a loud car ride. Technically, devices for the dock output or the lightning jack are at an advantage in terms of sound quality, but in our car we would not hear a difference. But be careful: what still works well in the city, for example if you tune the transmitter to a frequency at the edge of the spectrum that can be received by the car radio, can soon fail on the road. More and more frequencies are occupied by powerful transmitters that interfere or even completely prevent the reception of the ipod/iphone. constant readjustment would be necessary, but you would need either a tech-savvy co-driver or a pit stop every now and then. the stronger the transmitter power of the device, the better the reception, of course. But more than 50 nw radiation power is not allowed and such strong transmitters need constant power supply, the battery of ipod or iphone is not enough. we tested a suitable device some time ago: the holder of the technaxx FMT-X4000 is meant for the ipad itself. Not everyone’s taste, and not every passenger’s taste, to have such a bulky device stuck in the windshield. conclusion: our funk-experiment failed shortly after the city limits.

Method 2: bluetooth speakers

For entertainment in the vacation apartment, a battery-powered bluetooth speaker comes along anyway, in our case the token portable from speedlink. In macwelt-test he had still convinced, but we were not in the car. on the desk, it emitted a surprisingly good sound for its size, the rubber feet provided a stable hold on the flat surface. But there is nothing to see from flat surfaces in our travel carriage and with the noise in the car you can’t hear your own music anymore. And when the traffic radio comes on from the otherwise switched off radio, we have the most beautiful cacophony. We’ll try this again with another, somewhat louder device, but as with the method with ipod/iphone and plug-in FM adapter, a basic problem remains: at some point the battery is empty, either from the phone or from the speaker or from both. With a full charge, however, this should only be the case after eight to nine hours, and there’s no desire for much longer journeys anyway. Of course, there is another obvious solution: headphones while driving are taboo.

method 3: MP3-CD

There is still one method from the last century: the CD. Due to the lack of a CD changer, however, we would have to change the CD twice for each section of the journey (we take three breaks per 1000 kilometers and also make a fuel stop), with all the risks that this entails. Either one distracts oneself while searching from driving, or the passenger puts in the completely wrong disk. At least our car’s sound system understands the MP3 CD format. On 700 MB fit a good eight hours of music in compressed form, with the mentioned noise conditions in the vehicle, the quality difference to the audio CD is not noticeable. this method proved to be the best in our case, with one hitch: on the way back, the slot-in drive went on strike due to high interior temperatures, and the second MP3 CD we had just put in could neither be read nor ejected. The only thing left was the radio, which knew only four different songs in the last five hours of the trip in three broadcasting areas. How to create an MP3 CD from your music library on the mac is explained in the following box.

create mp3 cds from itunes library

700 MB fit on a standard CD blank, which corresponds to about eight hours of MP3 music at a sampling rate of 192 kbit/s, enough for most vacation trips. First we create a new playlist "car entertainment" in itunes and add to it the last albums bought in itunes store or elsewhere.

In order to convert the tracks into mp3s and get quick access to them, two more preparations are necessary. First we have to adjust the import settings in itunes. This can be found under the "settings> general" behind the "import settings" button. But be careful: not only can the tracks in the library now be converted to mp3 format, from now on every newly imported CD would be ripped to mp3 as well. After the conversion, so the back conversion to apple lossless or AAC not forgotten.

We also define a smart playlist in which we can find the mp3s. Itunes leaves the original files in the library and in our playlist "car entertainment" and does not simply overwrite our high quality files. For the smart playlist the criterion "added on" is sufficient, but we want to be absolutely sure and also specify the sample rate selected during the MP3 import as a criterion – maybe we just downloaded a new album from the itunes store today for our car entertainment, which we would otherwise still have in the original in the list.

The rest is easy: all the tracks in the "car entertainment" playlist and select the command "Create MP3 version" from the context menu call. The conversion takes a few minutes. In the meantime we are looking for the CD blanks that have been sitting in a corner somewhere for years.

Found? Finished converting? Good, then just select the smart playlist MP3 and call again the context menu. You can then burn the MP3 CD. We had already limited the playlist to a maximum of 700 MB when we created it. Otherwise itunes would complain about overcapacity – and offer to split the content on two MP3 cds at once.

Now, of course, the itunes library is loaded with mp3s that we don’t need on the mac per se. you can’t delete them from the smart playlist, so you have no choice but to switch to the track view of itunes. Let’s sort the tracks by the criterion "added", let’s quickly find the mp3’s created today – get rid of them. If we accidentally catch the album we just bought today during our deletion action, it’s not so bad – we can always download it from the itunes store again. Just select "purchases" from the intelligent playlist it is then gone.