What age do you have to be to travel south-western Europe by yourself?

How old to buy/drive car in Europe?

• What is the minimum age to buy + drive a car around Europe for a tourist? I'm an 18 year old who would like to travel around Europe and I'm considering different types of travel. I pretty sure I can't rent a car and I recall reading somewhere that you have to be OLDER than 18 to buy/drive a car in Europe. What are the regulations?

• Answer:

  You have to be 18 and in possession of a full driving license in most European countries to be able to buy and drive a car. The difficult thing is that you also need an insurance and that will be harder. First of all, in many countries you can not insure a car as foreign national who does not live there. You can also not insure your car with your home insurance company as it does not comply with your home countries rules and regulations. And in the few countries where you could get an insurance it will be very costly, and that comes on top of the very costly petrol and road taxes, and in some countries also toll costs. Those are good reasons for most young tourists to travel by train and most of the rest by bus or hitch hiking. (Although that last is not advised either.)