Hot answers tagged automobiles
22
Canadian Credit Cards
Many fuel dispensers in the USA (for sure in Hawaii, apparently elsewhere in the USA as well) accept the numbers-only from the postal code of a Canadian billing address followed by two zeros.
So, if your Canadian billing address is right beside Schwartz's Deli in Montreal where the postal code is H2W 1L2, you would enter '21200'. ...
21
Buying option
For a one-month trip, I do not recommend buying and selling a car. Although it probably could be done, let me address some of the complications with that first, then I'll discuss rentals:
A $3000 car will be old, and probably not very reliable. I would not trust a car in this price range to get me safely around the country without thorough ...
20
Required under certain conditions:
Outside populated areas: Italy, Hungary and Romania
Indicated roads only: Portugal
Motorcycles only: Belgium, France, Spain
Recommended:
Germany, Spain, France
Required at all times:
Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway, ...
19
We recently caught the ferry from the UK to Europe and needed to have these stickers (for the other way around).
We bought them before hand from UK car shop Halfords where they just call them "headlamp converters".
We also found find that everything needed for driving in other countries was sold on the ferry. They sold the headlamp converters, the country ...
16
Having a car in Berlin is more hassle than a convenience, just because of the parking situation, and the money you spend on parking meters.
Driving in Berlin is also not exactly fun with the traffic congestion, or much faster than the bus or subway either.
Leave your car at home, save the money and then decide after 3 months if you really need a car in ...
13
If at all possible, park near other
cars. The proximity of other cars
means that any potential thief not
only has to watch for you returning,
but also the owners of any of the
other cars.
An active alarm, preferably with a
highly visible red light blinking in
a prominent location. These tend to
get ignored when they go off in urban
areas simply because ...
13
Unless the car is over 25 years old, it's very difficult to import a car into the US. Check out this article for some details:
Importing Rare Cars into the US
If it's newer, it has to meet Department of Transportation and EPA guidelines. California used to charge a $300 "smog" fee for a car brought in from another state, unless it had a special ...
12
UK Credit Cards
I have a UK credit card and have had mixed results using my card at the pump. Sometimes no ZIP code is asked for and it works fine. Also, sometimes entering 00000 does work (I'm guessing because it's not subsequently using the ZIP code entered). In about 80% of cases, though (and it does seem to vary as to where in the US you are), I've had ...
11
I did a route like that last year with a friend of mine. We started in Belgium, went first to Ukraine, then down through Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria and Jordan, where took the boat to Egypt, then went down to Sudan and Ethiopia.
We could easily have driven further down, but we ran out of time. (Planning to continue later on in my/our life.)
We ...
11
Driving the road is 830 miles and not that hard except for the narrow roads, blind curves, etc. There are villages all around the coast of Iceland. Nytimes has a good article.
Now driving in the unpopulated highlands (the desert part in the middle) means driving in areas where there are no gas stations, no farms, no towing and you may have to drive across ...
11
I have damaged a rental car - not from driving on the wrong side of the road but crunching it against a curb while turning around in a tight spot. We had declined their extra insurance because my credit card provides that as a benefit. The credit card company said to just send them the proof that I had rented the car as well as the receipts for damages. The ...
10
(The last paragraph is the TL;DR version...)
I have bought a car in the US as a tourist four times, but twenty years ago.
The first time I was only there four six weeks but I expected to go to all kinds of odd places at odd times so never considered doing it another way given the country's bad reputation for public transport.
As pointed out in another ...
10
I can't help with the logistics of actually getting the vehicle between Thailand and Australia, however despite what is and isn't possible there, there's no cheap way to do what you're asking.
Australia has a relatively strict process for approving imported vehicles, which would normally only be worthwhile if the car was in some way special. If the vehicle ...
10
Yes you can. If there is no snow/ice you are allowed to drive with summer tires, but it's not a good idea. But if your tires have M+S symbol it's allowed to drive with them in winter (in summer too)
Here is a link to the source (only in German)
10
I know that German law requires tires apt for snow in winter time
Very close, but no cigar.
The original law is:
§ 2 Abs. 3a Satz 1 StVO:
Bei Glatteis, Schneeglätte, Schneematsch,
Eis- oder Reifglätte darf ein Kraftfahrzeug nur mit Reifen gefahren
werden, welche die in Anhang II Nummer 2.2 der Richtlinie 92/23/EWG
des Rates vom 31. März ...
9
If you're only worried about them stealing the car and not the contents I would remove the distributor cap. or depending on the way the engine is mounted swap the spark plugs with place holders. Either way you do this you need to keep them completely dry when you're hiking. The removal of either will stop the car from starting and I doubt any thief would be ...
9
From 1995 to 2010 Italian Radio Television (RAI - Radio Televisione Italiana), conducted a series of road trips with a couple of trucks, usually starting in Italy, with the final destination on various continents including South America, (South) Africa and Asia.
So it would be possible to do, but you would need special trucks (not cars), a lot of money, ...
9
Apart from not keeping valuables in the car, the next best solution is:
Keep all valuables out of sight to an observer outside the car. And preferably also locked.
Moreover, I'd say treat anything that isn't part of the car as a valuable. There are places where someone will smash and grab for 75 cents left sitting in the ashtray. Leave them no reason ...
9
Below are the answers to your questions, respectively:
1) Reykjavik is a pretty nice and relaxing city. How much time you want to spend there, depends on what you like and what you want to do there. If you like going to the pubs and just relax for sometime, then I would recommend to stay for a couple of days in Reykjavik.
2) If you want to take the Route 1 ...
9
This is a common misconception. There is no such thing as an "International driver's licence". What you need is a "International Driver's Permit" which is a translation into multiple languages of your original licence, and is only valid when presented with said licence at the same time. The IDP does not give you any more rights to drive in a country than you ...
9
Gazole and Diesel are synonyms. They both mean diesel fuel, as opposed to essence or super (short for supercarburant, nobody uses the long form) which means usual car gasoline.
You must use the type of fuel that's appropriate for your car, either gazole or super. I think that diesel engines are more common in cars in France than in most other countries.
...
9
In this case, first, you want a live tube map with Google maps underneath.
Live train map for the London Underground (yes, those are the trains moving on the map!)
As you can now clearly, see, this gives you a couple of options - the District Line (Green) and the Central Line (Red).
Upminster (end of the District line) is your closest stop there.There is ...
9
If you rent a car, you will always need to have an insurance. Most often it is included it in the rental sum and you're only liable up to some amount, which is in the 500 pound range. You can buy additional insurance to cover even these expenses. They will always give you an offer on pick-up, because that's a money-maker.
This is my experience from renting ...
8
You can certainly go all over Asia. As for Africa, there's nothing in the way except politics, and the ruggedness of your vehicle. For other continents, you'll probably need a specialist vehicle to traverse the ice cap to get across from the top of Russia to the top of Canada. Once you're there, there's nothing physically stopping you driving down to ...
8
In the end I ended up buying the stickers on the ferry from France to the UK, actually cheaper then any offer online, even excluding the postage. I now still have them in my car unused, since I did not drive at night.
But the stunning thing I would like to mention is what I just read in a brochure of the Dutch automobile association. If you are not able to ...
8
Many tourists fly in to Montego Bay and take shuttle buses from the airport to Ocho Rios (and back). It has been several years since I made that trip, so I couldn't tell you prices off the top of my head, but this site indicates that taxis are about $120, with the shuttles being significantly cheaper (some hotels and resorts in Ocho Rios may also offer ...
8
There is some parking advice at the website of fjordline (Dutch).
Er zijn maar een beperkt aantal parkeerplaatsen bij de terminal. Wij adviseren u te parkeren in het centrum van Hirtshals.Het is ook mogelijk te parkeren bij het kortbij gelegen Hotel Skaga – Contacteer de receptie van het hotel. Het is niet mogelijk om vooruit parkeerplaatsen te boeken.
...
8
Short answer: you can't, sorry :/ Parking is at a premium in the tight and narrow streets of Bath.
Long answer comes from Wikitravel:
It is very easy to get lost in Bath, as a lot of it is one-way and
there's a traffic system that prevents you driving from one side of
the city to the other. You have to go out on an unofficial ring road
and ...
8
You know, Kaliningrad is a trade city, and there are many people who use cars to move with goods to resell, so sometimes there are a lot of cars going through the border station.
From other side, the old border station in Mamononvo is not very big, which causes additional problems during crossing the border.
Also, Kaliningrad has many strategic places ...
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