A word about modern automatics. Please do not be influenced by stories from people who drove automatic cars in the early days. They might tell you about unreliability and expensive repairs. Whilst that was true, for the last 20 years, automatics have been very reliable and simple to use, they don't use more fuel than a manual which used to be the case and providing they are serviced properly, should last thousands of miles without problems.  

Automatics really come into their own when you are stuck in a jam or in heavy traffic around town. There are some people who would never go back to a car with manual transmission.