Most visitors to France take their own car across the Channel but with so many cheap air fares available it is often tempting to fly and hire a car at the airport. This makes particularly good sense if you are going to the South of France or just having a week's holiday.

Car hire is comparatively expensive in France so first of all think about whether you really need your own wheels. France has an excellent rail network, far cheaper and more extensive and efficient than ours in the UK. If you do not intend doing much exploring, the cost of train fares and a few taxis may work out to be a lot less than hiring a car.

Having decided, however, that a hire car is for you there are plenty of options on the Internet. The user-friendly Car Hire Centre website compares the five major brokers and has some great deals which can all be booked online quickly and easily. One of the few downsides to France is its bureaucracy, and hiring a car is no exception. To avoid wasting time with the whole family standing in the queue, the driver might like to steam ahead leaving the rest of the party to gather up the luggage. Make sure though that the driver has their passport, driving licence, rental voucher and the credit card used to make the booking as all these are required before the car keys are handed over. Talking of car keys, guard them with your life because if they are lost or stolen the replacement charge can be pretty hefty (200 Euros in the case of National Car Hire). If you are planning on taking your car out of France, for instance into Spain or Italy, make sure that this is permitted by the rental company.

If you are offered an upgrade don't accept it without first deciding whether it is suitable for your requirements. We were offered an upgrade from a pint sized Citroen to a brute of a Picasso people carrier and never being one to look a gift horse in the mouth I accepted without engaging brain. Whilst it was good to have the extra power on the motorway it was a real challenge to park and manoeuvre through the maze of narrow streets in some of the walled medieval towns that we visited. The national pastime of shoe-horning a car in a tiny alley has achieved art form status only because the majority of French cars are small.

Before you drive the car away make sure that you take time to inspect the bodywork carefully, even if it's pouring with rain or pitch dark. The said Picasso had a nasty scrape down one side (yes, someone else had found it hard to park!) which had not been noted on the rental papers. Also take time to acquaint yourself with how the car works. Caught in a thunder storm on the motorway is not the best time to have to work out how the windscreen wipers turn on. Having said that, the wipers were not a problem with the Picasso. Indeed every time my husband put the car into gear (the gears by the way were located on the steering wheel), they came on regardless of weather conditions. What was a problem, however, was the handbrake – not how to release it but merely how to find it. Having hunted high and low and in the absence of a handbook we had to admit defeat and seek help. It turned out to be cunningly disguised in the form of a square button in the middle of the dashboard which we had wrongly assumed was the hazard lights. If you are hiring an automatic do not assume that the car will hold in gear on a hill. One of the Picasso's more alarming habits was its tendency to roll back when moving one's foot from the brake to the accelerator.

You will be charged a punitive amount for not returning your car with a full tank of petrol so make sure that you build in time to do this when returning to the airport. Petrol is cheapest at supermarkets and most expensive on motorways and remember that small petrol stations often close for a long lunch so don't get caught out. Do not depend either on being able to pay at the pump with your debit or credit card as many do not yet accept foreign cards. When looking for the hire car return point at the airport do not assume that there will be any sign in English, telling you where to go. Instead watch out for signs saying location de voitures which means car rental not location of cars!

Despite the trials of our much-maligned upgrade there is no doubt that hiring a car is a great way to see parts of France which you may feel are just too far to drive from the UK. The only problem is that other drivers assume you are French so if you stop to ask directions be prepared for a rapid-fire answer!

For more information on driving in France, see the article on the Rentals France website.