New answers tagged car-rentals
1
Hopefully the car rental companies mean IDP or translation, because both should certainly not be required.
An International Driving Permit is not a translation in the linguistic sense. It is a document that certifies that the holder has a driving licence valid for one or more specified classes of vehicles. Unfortunately there is no organisation authorised ...
3
IDPs are issued by countries (or their in-country agents) that have adopted one or more of the several international Conventions on Road Traffic. (You can read more about the Conventions and IDPs in this Wikipedia article.) These conventions are international treaties between countries.
Translation isn't an issue: an IDP itself is and serves as a ...
2
First of all, I would like to take the chance to warn you off of this particular provider. As per this person's review,
The name on the rental agreement [on the car picked up at Thrifty at the MBJ airport] is with a company called Tropical Tours Car Rental, not Thrifty.
Also, as per this site's numerous reviews, the Thrifty (whether or not it is ...
4
This heavily depends on the country and the rental agency.
Major agencies in the US care very little about dirt that is removable, and in hundreds of rentals I have never been asked to pay anything (and some of those cars went two weeks through offroad and mud...).
The cheaper and shadier a rental company gets, the higher is your chance to get milked for ...
1
Amazingly, though even cheap cars in the UK come with built-in satnav, I've never had a rental car in North America -- even upmarket models -- come with a built-in satnav. And although I use a Samsung Galaxy phone and find its navigation useful when on foot in strange countries, even that size of screen isn't great while you're driving. When I travel to ...
4
In general, you don't have to return a car "clean" - they expect they'll have to do a normal wash and vacuum job.
The point where you normally would get charged a cleaning fee is if a normal wash and clean like you'd expect from your corner car wash is not sufficient to clean the car. In your case it's not clear what that was, but probably if they had to ...
4
If all you’re doing is going to the Grand Canyon and if you are comfortable getting out of the city without a GPS then the drive is very straightforward. There will be phone coverage within Las Vegas itself.
Worth noting cellphones in the US are very expensive compared to other countries.
7
It mostly depends on what you would otherwise use for navigation. Also, consider that you are planning to travel to an area with a low population density (high risk of getting lost, as well as patchy cell coverage, see Death by GPS).
Regarding your “usual” navigation options, consider:
Is off-line navigation supported? You might not have a data connection, ...
-1
Buy a $5 map at a gas station. You will easily be able to navigate yourself to and from the Grand Canyon.
9
Because Korea is extremely dense and that makes it easy to essentially 100% cover with cell phone service. The Grand Canyon has a vast wilderness, almost comparable to Siberia.
Whether a car sat-nav makes sense depends on the unit
A traditional Sat-Nav device (you mis-call them "GPS") has a huge amount of memory to store pre-programmed maps of your region....
answered Jan 25 at 16:11
Harper - Reinstate Monica
25.5k3 gold badges49 silver badges103 bronze badges
1
We paid extra in the US recently and they gave us an android device that took us around in circles trying to get out of Los Vegas. Ended up using Google maps and forgot about the supplied one.
Won't be bothering with paying extra for GPS next time.
Note: we had T mobile SIM cards for mobile data and I'd also setup offline maps.
12
I'm going to add a 3rd option. Buy your own stand-alone GPS unit from a big box store in the US. Depending on how long your trip is, what data plan you have for your phone, or how much the GPS rental is from the car company this may be a cheaper option.
Additional benefits of this option is that the device will come with mounting hardware, and that when ...
43
If you have a modern phone, you don't need to rent the GPS with the car. Just install a navigation app that supports offline maps (this includes Google Maps these days but there are others), and download the proper maps in advance. I usually have a second app as backup.
The only minor inconvenience is that you need a mount (I use a cheap generic one bought ...
10
If you don't have mobile internet access while in the US you have to resort to offline maps or to the car GPS, because you can't download maps on your phone as you navigate.
I've rented a car in the US a couple of times and I always added a GPS, because the roaming costs for mobile internet connection are very high, and I didn't want to buy a US SIM card ...
4
About 3 years ago, I visited Japan for 3 weeks. For 2 of those weeks I used a JR rail pass to travel around. Around cities and to other cities. I then headed to Hokkaido.
In Hokkaido I rented a car for a week, and I found it surprisingly easy. Road signs were in Japanese and (mostly) had English as well for destinations, cities, attractions, etc. There ...
1
It really depends where you want to go. I have been to Japan seven times and I have only needed a car once.
In urban areas, like Kansai (Osaka and nearby cities like Kyoto, Kobe, Nara, Himeji) or Tokyo, public transportation is quite convenient. And navigating within an urban area (for example, from Osaka to Kyoto) is not expensive (there are actually ...
3
All offices are operated by the same company and you can expect similar service in all branches.
Prices do however vary a lot depending on the location of the station. Just a check for tomorrow gives me prices between €110 and €170 for a daily rental of the same car depending on where you pick it up. The office at the main railway station is with €145 one ...
4
They are locations of the same company, but depending on locations, car selection will vary significantly, and prices might vary too:
It is quite expensive to store a lot of cars downtown, as space is expensive, so if you rent downtown, you probably pay a higher price.
Similary, renting at an airport often has additional fees included, 20 to 30% extra is ...
Top 50 recent answers are included
