Yes. Yes. I know I said I was going to post more but I’ve been busy and then a dose of the ‘Rona.
OK. Who doesn’t love a good road trip? The open road. Tunes playing. Cruise control on. A great way to see a country at your own pace. Where if you want to stop off somewhere and take in the view, you can. The only timetable is one you have set. Never done one and fancy doing one? Here’s my top hints and tips to avoid frustration.
Planning.
You want to do a road trip but don’t know where to go? My first tips is to look at the USA. At the time of writing (July 2022) you no longer need to provide a negative test but still need to be “fully vaccinated” as per CDC definition.
USA is a big country with eyewatering distances between some cities, especially in the Mid-West. You thought it was a long way down the road to the chemist? Well that’s just peanuts to USA cities. This means a bit of careful planning as you want to see places without spending 8 hours solid on the Interstates.
Think where do you want to see. my 2 places to start would be, a) New England and b) California.
New England will give you the mountains of New Hampshire (and sales tax-free shopping). Early colonial history of Massachusetts. Green Mountains of Vermont (and ice cream) along with the rugged coast of Maine (lobster!!). Start and end point in Boston with maybe a few days in the city before picking up your car.
California has the famous beaches, Hollywood, the hills of San Francisco (and Napa wines) and Disneyland. You have the National Parks such as Joshua Tree, Redwoods, Sequoia and Yosemite. You can even sneak in a side trip to neon signs at Las Vegas in Nevada. You can start at Los Angeles, San Francisco or San Diego. There are also epic road trips such as Chicago to Los Angeles along the famed Route 66.
You are only really limited by your imagination and how much time you can spend.
So how long do you want to drive each day? 2 hours? 6 hours? 12 hours? How many drivers are there in your party? How spread out are the towns and cities?
Plan the route around where you want to go and what you want to see. Be realistic. Saying you want to drive from LA to San Francisco in a morning is technically possible, only if you leave at 5AM and only want to see the I5 and the 101!! Also take into account how long you usually drive. If the majority of you drives are less than an hour, don’t plan 10 hour days as you’ll be exhausted. Look at 6-7 hours a day max to get a balance between seeing things and making progress.
Vehicle.
So you’ve chosen where you want to go, now you need to pick what sort of car you want.
The temptation is either pick the largest car you can possibly get or conversely, the smallest you can get. My advise is don’t go for either.
Look at the length of driving each day, compare to your own drives and your car to see what you want. If you normally drive a large car and plan on doing long days, then a larger car is more suitable. Equally if you only plan on 2-3 hour drives, something smaller is needed.
Other factors are how many in your group, how much baggage to you take (I’ll come on to that) and how much do you want to pay.
If there are just 2 of you, then a smaller car will do. If it’s a family of 5 or 6, then a larger car is needed.
My advice is to find the car you think you need and then book the next class up. This will give some extra room to stretch out on long drives.
Unless you really REALLY need one, avoid SUVs, convertibles and exotics. There is a temptation to book a SUV as that’s pretty much all you see these days but there are drawbacks. Sure, you get an elevated driving position and plenty of room but they tend to be less fuel-efficient and often don’t come with a cover of the rear luggage space.
Convertibles sound great. Roof down, wind in your hair (or over your bald head), sun and fresh air. The reality when the roof is down is noise, you look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge, sunburn and sucking down traffic fumes. Plus the boots tend to be small as the roof folding mechanism takes up space. If there are just 2 of you and you pack light, maybe. A family of 4? nope.
Exotics. Maybe a European sports car or a classic US muscle car like a corvette? Unless you are absolutely set on one, just get a normal car. Exotics are expensive to rent, often thirsty and will usually come with a mileage limit. Exceed it and it will be pricey. Plus they may not be the most reliable…
Just a word on electric cars. Consider your route. Cities may have plenty of charging points, but out in rural area? Maybe not.
Most cars are similarly equipped these days with A/C as standard, electric windows, drivers seat and a radio/CD player. Larger cars may come with leather seats and a few other fancy features. If you have an iPhone, Apple CarPlay is a very useful feature that allows easy pairing with your phone to music and maps. Unfortunately they are rarely list as a feature so there is a bit of pot luck about getting it, although manufactures are now adding it as standard on even the base models.
So you’ve chosen the location and the car you want. Who do you book through?
There are dozens of car rental companies out there, many of which are actually the same company just with another name.
For example, Hertz owns Thrift and Dollar, whereas Avis owns Budget and Enterprise owns Alamo and national. Generally the difference is only in age of vehicle, with the budget brands getting the hand-me-downs.
You also have the non-chain budget companies where cost is a lot lower and the cars are much older. Personally I go with Alamo and have not had any major problems.
Where do you pick it up?
The largest rental centres are unsurprisingly at airports as they have huge throughputs each day. Hotels often have an office and there are some in city centres.
The temptation is to pick up at the airport thinking you can get some miles done after a long flight. Be careful doing then. Unless you know exactly where you are going, consider staying at a nearby hotel and picking up in the morning. Not only will you have had a good sleep but you have a full day ahead of you. Trying to find a strange hotel, in the dark in an unfamiliar city is fraught.
Picking up the car.
When you arrive at the airport there are generally 2 types of rental centres.
On-site and off-site. On-site are the more convenient as you simple walk to it. Off-site may need a shuttle bus or a monorail to get to. Off site is becoming more popular with a giant new centre opening at Los Angeles airport in 2023. This allows companies to be in one location for (nearly) all along with refuelling, cleaning and maintenance facilities. It also reduces the amount of shuttle buses clogging up the roads.
Both types will be clearly signposted in the terminals. If you do need a shuttle bus, ensure you get on the correct one, even if they are the same group, unless otherwise stated. If you have a Hertz booking, don’t get on the Dollar bus as the depot will be different.
Most of the large companies now allow you to do express check-in for you car. This involves entering the driving licence details of all drivers, contact details and a valid credit card. Once completed, you can simply go to the depot, select the car from your booking group and drive off with just a stop at the exit booth to show licence and confirm you have the correct group car.
If you don’t you will either need to join the queue at the desks or one of the self-service machines. If on a busy international flight, the queues can be long.
Another advantage is that this avoids any chance of upcharging. A common ploy at the desk is to offer an upgrade to the car. These ‘offers’ can dramatically increase the cost. Another ploy is to offer personal injury insurance. This is included in you normal travel insurance. Don’t accept the ‘breakdown plus’ or ‘roadside assistance plus’ as all this covers is losing the keys or if you run out of fuel. Cars all come with 24-hour roadside assistance if you breakdown.
If your car develops a fault that doesn’t leave you at the roadside, return the car to the nearest main depot and it will be swapped out. This includes if you change the wheel after a puncture.
Now you’ve got to your car, picked the one you want and even like the colour, you can throw you bags in, start it up and head off. Right? Wrong?
Rental cars are used by everyone and cared for by no-one. Even cars with a few thousand miles will have dings, scuff and chips. Check the car carefully for damage, making a note on the documents and make sure you take a photo. Each company will have their own process for recording damage. This is to ensure you don’t get blamed for a dent from the previous user.
Also check the condition of the tyres. Make sure there is sufficient tread, no lumps, bulges, splits and tears. If there are, select a different car.
Another thing to check is, does it smell like the last user smoked in it. Most rental cars are non-smoking and the company will bill you if they think it has been. If it stinks of cigarettes, pick another car.
Make sure it has a full tank of petrol. Cars are supplied full and you should return them full unless you either have a fuel plan or happy of the company to refill it for you and charge some 50% more than the pump price.
At the time of writing, fuel prices are very high and the fuel plans reflect that so refilling before return may be cheaper.
If you get to the area of the depot for your vehicle class and it is empty, don’t panic. There is usually a small service booth nearby for problems. Go there and speak to the staff. They will usually say to either way 10 minutes as there are cars on the way, or more likely, they will say to take the next class up and will make a note. Do not assume you can just take a different class as they will stop you at the exit and tell you the new rate.
Once at the exit, the car is scanned out ad you are free to go. I’ll cover dropping off in another post
Top tips.
- Shop around for prices as they can vary wildly. Cars are charged in 24-hour blocks and not by the day. If you pick the car up at 3pm, you need to return it by 3pm on the last day to avoid another day. Some companies allow a 2-3 hour grace period but that’s not guaranteed.
- Where ever possible, leave bags, shopping etc in the boot and lock the car if leaving it. Out of sight, out of mind. Nothing like having your car broken in to and the bags on the back seat stolen to ruin a holiday.
- Spend a few minutes getting familiar with the car’s controls in the depot
- Use the download feature on Google Maps to get an off-line copy, especially you don’t have a mobile data roaming plan.
- Make sure you take suitable phone charging cables. We’re currently in a crossover period where some cars have USB-A sockets and others have USB-C sockets. You can also take a charger that plugs into the 12v supply.
- If you can, pair your phone with the bluetooth so music streams over the car stereo.
- Take some basic pedal bin liners to act as rubbish bags to help keep the car tidy. A packet of wet wipes will come in hand too along with a roll of kitchen paper. I also carry a small bottle of glass cleaner to remove the inevitable film on the inside of the windscreen
- On longer trips do make sure you do regular checks of oil, fluids, tyre pressure etc. May well save you hours waiting to be recovered.
- when you book or pick up, use a credit card and not a debit card. if you use a debit card the full total will be reserved from your balance. This can cause problems later as any payments for household bills etc. may fail due to insufficient funds.
This is a lot longer than I planned, so will carry on in part 2. I suspect there will be part 3 too.
Until then, stay safe and healthy. Treat others how you would like to be treated and have yourself a great day.
