How do you handle driving abroad?

Meet-ups & Travel
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Hello everyone!

I wanted to ask you all, whether pet sitter or pet owner, how do you handle driving abroad?

Do you have any tips or advice for those looking at driving abroad for the first time? Maybe you have some information on:

  • How to handle car insurance abroad?
  • Local rules of the road?
  • Dealing with driving on the opposite side, i.e. (left-hand vs right-hand drive)?
  • Ever declined a sit due to driving concerns?
  • Any experiences with rental cars?

There are lots of seasoned travellers here on the Forum, so we’d love to hear your experiences around driving abroad in the replies!

Jenny :slightly_smiling_face:

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For people considering renting a car, know that the rates you see on third party sites may not include certain types of insurance and other fees that are mandatory to purchase in a given country. And depending on the extra charges and the length of time you are looking to rent the car, this change in price can be significant.

Back in 2021, we rented a car for three months in Panama and at least at that time, the rates on sites like Kayak,etc…did not include the mandatory 3rd party liability insurance(not any kind your credit card would cover). It appeared as if we could rent a car for just a few hundred dollars total, but in reality, it was almost 1,500.

I became aware of this after doing some research on my own and ended up renting a car directly from an agency in the city–will be cheaper than directly at the airport-- that included all potential charges.

Also, they put a significant deposit hold on my credit card–several thousand dollars-- but it was not for the whole length of the rental. It went away after about a week or so. Having had a credit card with a high limit, this reduction in available credit didn’t impact me, but for others, it definitely could. So that would be another thing to check on.

Back in 2018 we rented a car in NZ for about 7 bucks a day through a 3rd party site and that apparently included everything–at that time I didn’t know to check on any of that stuff so I was lucky that the fees on the travel site were accurate.

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My experience is that although a rental is booked online, in some countries (I’ve experienced it in the US) they would try to get you to put more money into it. In Florida once they even got me to rent a GPS, and when I came down to the car, a GPS was installed - so a total waste to rent a mobile one.

My credit card has cover for the deductible for car rental, so no need to pay extra for that. I’m sure many don’t know if they have such cover (could also be in your travel insurance, for instance) so it could pay off to do your homework.

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• Depending on the country, you might need an international driver’s license, which is usually a translation of your original license. I’d check before traveling if I wanted to rent a car or drive someone else’s.

• Putting a hold for X dollar amount on your credit card is typical when you rent a car or stay at a hotel, so folks with a low credit limit might run into trouble. Depending on your credit history, you can sometimes ask your bank to increase your limit. I’d suggest doing that ahead of travel if credit is a concern. Of course, you could carry additional credit cards, but some folks want to build reward points or get rental discounts on certain cards or use certain ones because they save foreign transaction fees on their charges. Note: Some rental agencies will let you rent with one credit card and pay with another when you return.

• If you’re doing long-distance driving while abroad, it might be worth considering joining AAA or similar automobile clubs that will cover towing or breakdowns. The costs typically are affordable vs. paying to be towed or otherwise helped with a breakdown. Depending on the borrowed or rental car, that might or might not be covered.

• If you’re borrowing a car from someone, you might want to ask them to write a letter granting you use. That might save you trouble if you’re pulled over or such, depending on the country. That might be especially handy if your host is traveling in different time zones and/or might be otherwise hard to reach.

• About pet or child safety: Different countries have different laws for animal restraints or car seats / booster seats, so check ahead of travel. Rental agencies often have car seats available, but only in limited numbers. When driving pets around, it’s generally recommended that they be harnessed and belted, so if there’s a severe crash, they won’t be thrown out of the car or run lose if the humans are suddenly incapacitated. There are many cases of dogs running away after a crash when they’re unrestrained, because they’re in shock or scared.

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You have to be careful of automatic speeding scans and being in lanes where a special toll is applied. I was in Colombia and got an automatic speeding ticket in a rental car. You will be hounded.

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Over the last week, I have just been examining how to handle driving while here in the UK for a few months. I had originally planned to purchase a car while here. I considered purchasing one from a local lot at my current sit location, but decided that the price was just far greater than the particular car was worth. And what I really don’t want is to be stuck with a car that I have to dump at fire sale price, say, three days before I’m required to leave the county.

I started investigating sticking to transit instead. I message with the host at the sit I have booked in July about transit availability in their rural setting. She offered that I could use her car if I can place insurance on it. I spoke to the same insurance broker I got a quote from about the potentially purchased car. While a policy was expensive, it was still half the cost of renting for the same period. When we were going though the final stages of placing the policy, she let me know that her system won’t allow her to accept a Canadian credit card. So, that was that.

In retrospect, I’m so glad I didn’t purchase a car and then find that, while I can get a policy, I can’t pay for it since I don’t have a valid UK credit card. Bullet dodged.

So now I’m back to renting as and when needed.

In case any visitors to the UK are looking to purchase a policy on a purchased or borrowed car, I found that Sterling Insurance was quite able to do both. But I’ll reiterate, you appear to need a way to pay with a domestic card.

On local rules, I learned to drive on the left-hand side while doing a sit in Australia last year. I flipped my wipers on instead of signaling a few times, but it all came quick. Since I was rural staying, I had a reasonable opportunity to practice all of the opposite things I’ve become accustomed to before heading into a larger city. No person or thing was harmed as a result of my transition to the other side of the road.

I watched a Youtube video to learn about the differences between Australia’s rules and signs of the road. I’ll do that here as well before I start driving on UK roads.

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I have never declined a sit due to driving concerns, but there are plenty I didn’t apply for due to driving concerns. You ask specifically about driving abroad, which is open to interpretation depending on what “abroad” is for the respondent. I learned to drive in the United States, but I have driven quite a bit in Europe and I have an international driving license (which isn’t as fancy as it sounds - it’s just a translated version of my regular license). European driving still terrifies me. For example, in Germany people never - NEVER - pass on the right. Whereas in the US, people pass on the right all the time. I sometimes forget that in Germany. And roundabouts, very common in certain parts of Europe, aren’t that common where I typically drive. Don’t even get me started with dodging electric trams in Toronto or some such. Terrifying.

In answer to your questions:

  1. How to handle insurance abroad - I always overpay. My regular car insurance will not cover a rental in most countries, and I’m too worried about accidentally crossing a border to keep track. One time - ONE time - I did not get the insurance, and a tiny part of the car broke, and it cost me like $800. I should have gotten the insurance.

  2. Local rules of the road - I read up on them before I go, and if they’re scary or confusing, I just take public transportation or a taxi or rideshare. I strongly prefer public transportation anyway. If I were going to be in another country for an extended period of time and HAD to drive, I would pay for a driving instructor.

  3. I refuse - REFUSE - to drive on the opposite side. I know someone whose entire family was killed by a Japanese driver who got confused in California. Life is too precious to risk it.

  4. Rental car experience - just know that they WILL track you down if you make the tiniest mistake. I won’t go into the details here because - well, to protect the innocent and the guilty. But you might think you got away with something only to arrive at a rental counter three years later and discover that they REMEMBER that you owe them for that toll / parking ticket / speeding ticket (or some such) from three years before. And they’re not letting you leave until you pay it.

Also, read the fine print. Like the insurance won’t cover if you go off a paved road - when most of the places you are planning to go aren’t paved. Or they’ve automatically included a “toll pass” for you, when you won’t be using any toll roads, and that costs you an extra $30 a day you only find out about later when you get your credit card bill. And so on.

Whenever possible, I try to use public transportation or rideshares, as I find them both more convenient and less expensive.

And be aware: Car insurance generally won’t cover the CONTENTS of the vehicle - that is covered by homeowner’s insurance. If you leave anything valuable in the car and the car and contents get stolen, you’ll be hit with two deductibles (the US term). So better to bring everything inside so only the car is gone!

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I’m from the UK and have taken my van to France and Spain. Initially with some trepidation at driving a right-hand drive on the left hand side of the road, but I loooooove it! Much nicer driving in France and Spain than in the UK, I find that I can go much longer as the roads are much quieter and my van isn’t speed restricted in the same way it is in the UK as they go by weight rather than dimensions.

You do need some gear like a high Vis which are required by law, but nothing unreasonable and just as useful having in the UK.

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Worth considering for hosts: Offering a pickup or drop off for a sitter might make your sit more attractive, depending on how challenging it is to get to your place (especially if public transit is limited or nonexistent or available only during certain hours, and because arriving with baggage can be more challenging if there’s a significant distance to be covered between the stop or station and your home, and/or if you live down an unpaved road or such).

My experience is, many of my hosts have volunteered pickups and drop offs for airports and train stations. One set of hosts, for whom I’ve repeat-sat, even offered to pick me up an hour+ away, from where I planned to sightsee before their sit. Instead — because I thought their offer above and beyond, and I didn’t want to take advantage — I boarded a tour bus from London and toured the Cotswolds, then continued the tour to Stratford-upon-Avon. After the tour, I didn’t return with the bus to London. I had brought my luggage with me (plenty of room on the tour bus), so I then checked into a hotel and did more sightseeing. Then my hosts picked me up the next day at my hotel. When I left, one time they dropped me off at the train station and another time they dropped me off at the next town, where I planned to stay on a bit and sightsee.

Another set of hosts, who lived an hour+ drive from a U.S. airport, offered to cover my $80 USD round trip airport shuttle ride, unasked. Then they met me at the shuttle drop off closest to their home and took me to dinner before we headed to their home. When I left, they dropped me off at the same stop. (I also dropped them off and picked them up at the shuttle stop, because they loaned me a car.)

In case it helps hosts who are considering loaning a car, I mention my driving experience in my sitter profile, which includes extensive cross country road trips, driving an RV and such.

My experience is, some hosts won’t mention offering a car in their listing. But some have volunteered it during our video chat. That might be because some hosts will loan their car only if they feel comfortable with the right sitters.

And separately, I did one sit where I actually had my own car, but my hosts offered theirs after I mentioned that I might take their dog to the beach, 1.5 hours away, one way. They even gassed up their car, because they said I shouldn’t have to pay to take their dog on adventures. Because they were thoughtful, I offered to drop them at the airport.

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I’ve been travelling to the UK for quite a number of years now and am very at home on the roads here as, in Australia, we drive on the left hand side too - part of the attraction of coming to the UK! The narrow lanes still can be a little challenging which is one of the reasons I rent a small, automatic car. I do check up on road rules and what the painted lines mean in relation to parking.

My travel insurance covers any excess that may need to be paid should I have an issue with the car.

I always use Kendall Cars, a family-owned business, based in Guildford but they have numerous branches in the south. They look after me well and I find their rates good, especially where I rent for about 3 months.

Although I am not meant to have dogs in the rental car, I have transported a dog a couple of times where a crate, back seat hammock or seat cover have been provided for a short drive to a walking destination or to the vet.

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very productive post and replies!

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Welcome to the community @yourhelper92 :slightly_smiling_face:

Thank you to everyone who has shared some tips on driving abroad so far! I actually don’t drive (yet…) but I think everyone’s raised some great points.

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@JohnSmiley
For me the challenge of right-hand drive wasn’t being on the other side of the road, but shifting with my left arm! Not a problem in NZ where autotrans are pretty common, but in the UK -where an auto can add a lot to the price.

On local rules, I learned to drive on the left-hand side while doing a sit in Australia last year. I flipped my wipers on instead of signaling a few times, but it all came quick. Since I was rural staying, I had a reasonable opportunity to practice all of the opposite things I’ve become accustomed to before heading into a larger city. No person or thing was harmed as a result of my transition to the other side of the road.

@Huronbase

I forgot to call and pay the toll for the Dartford Tunnel in London within 24 hours and was really expecting Sixt car rental to ding me for the penalty, but they didn’t charge me at all. Got lucky, I guess.

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The bigger rental agencies have everything on file contact wise and will send you a bill for tickets, tolls and such that are outstanding. And they’ll report you in the U.S. at least to some departments of motor vehicles in various states. That means when you go renew or get a license or such, they can block you if you don’t pay.

Tickets and tolls unpaid often accrue penalties, so they can be quite pricey if you end up paying late.

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The rental car companies might have automatic tolls on their cars for that since it probably happens a lot. It would save them money in the long run.

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I’m also from the UK and agree with @ERRa that driving in France is so much more pleasant. Not only are the roads so much less crowded, but we also found ample free parking everywhere we visited - even in a city like Le Mans where we were able to park for free right outside the Gallo Roman city walls.

I’ve also driven in Canada and the US in the past.

Most times I have driven abroad was in a rental car, but the most recent time was in our family car. It was surprisingly easy to adjust to driving a right hand drive car on the right hand side of the road. I had expevted to find it tricky to judge how close oncoming vehicles were as my drivers seat was nearest the kerb, but I found it to be not difficult at all.

I did make sure I had insurance to drive my car in France, and breakdown cover. I also researched the tjings I needed to carry in the car - things like a high vis. a set of spare bulbs and so on.

There are also some cities in France (and I believe elsewhere in the European Union) that have low emission zones, that you may only enter if you have a sticker to certify that your car is within the emissions limit. These can be ordered and sent to your home address in advance, but can’t be acquired once in France. I left it to late, but I drove from Dieppe to Le Mans and the only place I had to take a detour to avoid an emission zone was Rouen. There is an app that shows the zones called Green-Zones.

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I’ll answer from 2 perspectives: sitters from abroad driving here and lessons learned myself driving abroad.

A recent sitter for an extended stay used our vehicle to get around without problem. The question of auto insurance came up before her arrival and I learned a few things. In California, my vehicle insurance covers sitters using my vehicles up to the limit of “excessive use”. “Excessive use” is not thoroughly defined but effectively limits coverage to 12 uses or days per year by the same visitor. For coverage over the 5 week stay, we would have had to make the sitter a named insured. That would have been great as adding her would have actually saved on my insurance premium (insurance companies, go figure) Unfortunately, my insurer (AAA) would not add a named insured without a US drivers license. That’s not legally compatible with California’s insurance regulations but there wasn’t much i could do about it. So we took the risk that our insurance would not be needed and it all worked out. I’ll have to do more thinking on this concern for future sits.

As far as personal lessons from driving abroad, there have been 2 big challenges, a couple of minor issues and 1 impossibility.

Driving in the opposite side of the road was a total nightmare the first time around. That might have been because I was driving a beat up Mini Morris with wobbly shifter linkage I was trying to work with my off hand. That experience had me terrified decades later over driving a manual transmission in Ireland but it turns out a decent manual transmission was no challenge and switching road sides has been pretty much pain free since.

Another major problem had been route following. Highway and road routing practices in some countries are bewildering. My smartphone Maps applications are critical to knowing where I’m going and how to get there. In turn, I have to have cell access to use those smart devices and factor that requirement into my travel planning. Additionally and importantly, I make full use of Google’s offline maps capability to insure I at least have a functioning GPS map even when I lose cell coverage. That part of trip planning requires that I download all map sections I might use in my travels before leaving home.

A minor problem for my lead foot are the automatic speed cameras common in some countries but not back home. New Zealand and Spain taught me some lessons expensive enough that I am now a speed teetotaler when driving abroad. Rental car companies simply charge any automatic tickets to your CC and have appeared on my statements up to 2 months after the trip.

Weeks spent driving around Western Ireland, Wales and Cornwall were “interesting” with all the 1 lane twisty roads posted for 60 MPH. Fans of Doc Martin might recall similar scenes from around Portwenn except that you need to add 10’ high hedgerows crowding both road edges to get a full picture.

The impossibility issue simply means I can not and will not attempt to drive in certain areas. For example, London, Tokyo, Rome, Cairo, …. I’m just not going to do it. I can barely ride in a taxi with my eyes open in those cities.

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I did some practice driving with a rental a couple of weeks ago. I figured that left-hand stick would definitely be a steep learning curve. I’m glad to say, nope! Seems that because the gears are still arranged left to right, my left hand knew how to handle it with barely any thinking at all. But all the unfamiliar road signs and road markings! That got me good. I don’t think it’s just that there are unfamiliar ones, but I got the sense that there are SO MANY. Maybe I’m accustomed to simply quickly seeing and processing the ones back in North America, but it feels like there are heaps more here. Driving in England feels like it makes for very, very busy eyeballs.

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@JohnSmiley Left-armed shifting came pretty quickly to me, too.
Narrow country roads, though….
A sit at a 19th century castle had some very narrow roads - with hedges lining both sides. Fortunately the HO was letting me use an older SUV, so even when I did brush a hedge, it wasn’t new scratches and scrapes.