Rent a car in United Kingdom

Our UK car rental services cover the country end to end. Avis has offices at every major airport — Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, Manchester, Edinburgh and more — along with city centre locations and rail station branches across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

London is superbly served by public transport, but the rest of the country is not. Beyond the M25 the UK only really opens up with a car: the villages, coastlines and mountain passes that define it are largely unreachable by train.

Flexible return options suit the classic routes well — collect at Heathrow and finish in Edinburgh, or fly into Inverness for the Highlands and hand the car back in Glasgow.

YOUR TOP RENTAL LOCATIONS IN UNITED KINGDOM

London Heathrow Airport · London Gatwick Airport · London Stansted Airport · London Luton Airport · Central London · Manchester · Birmingham · Edinburgh · Glasgow · Inverness · Bristol · Leeds · Liverpool · Newcastle · Cardiff · Belfast · Southampton · Aberdeen · Oxford · Cambridge · York

The United Kingdom packs four countries, three national road networks and roughly twelve thousand kilometres of coastline into an island smaller than most people expect. Nothing is very far from anything else — which is precisely why it works as a driving destination.

Start by leaving London. Within two hours west lie the Cotswolds, where honey-coloured villages like Bibury and Castle Combe sit along lanes that reward driving slowly, with Bath and its Roman baths just beyond. Continue and the country runs out spectacularly: the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, the moors and coves of Devon and Cornwall, and Land’s End at the very end of the road.

North of the capital, the Peak District and the Yorkshire Dales offer stone-walled valleys and market towns, with the walled city of York and its minster nearby. Hadrian’s Wall runs across the neck of the country, and the Lake District holds England’s highest ground — Windermere and Derwentwater below, and the Hardknott and Wrynose passes above for drivers who want a genuine challenge.

Scotland is where a UK road trip becomes something else. Edinburgh’s Old Town and castle make the natural gateway, but the drives are north and west: Glencoe’s glacial valley, the road to the Isle of Skye, the Cairngorms, and the whisky distilleries of Speyside. The North Coast 500 loops five hundred miles from Inverness around the top of the mainland, past sea lochs and single-track roads with passing places, and has become one of Europe’s best-known driving routes.

Wales concentrates its scenery: the peaks of Eryri, better known as Snowdonia, the waterfalls of Bannau Brycheiniog in the Brecon Beacons, and the Pembrokeshire coast path in the far southwest. Across the Irish Sea, Northern Ireland’s Causeway Coastal Route runs from Belfast past the basalt columns of the Giant’s Causeway — a short drive with an outsized reputation.

Driving is on the left, which takes an hour or two to feel natural, particularly at roundabouts. Motorways are excellent and free; rural roads can narrow to single track with passing places. Central London is subject to the Congestion Charge and the ULEZ emissions charge, so check whether your vehicle and route are affected. Late spring and early autumn give the best conditions, though Highland weather does as it pleases year-round.