My Experience renting a car for a California Road-Trip

Two years ago, I went to USA for the first time. Accustomed to traveling in Europe; I did not ever need to consider renting a car. I always had my international driver’s license renewed before traveling anywhere, but it was only as a “just in case” measure. But as I was planning my USA trip, I found that most people recommended renting a car especially that I was going to be in Orange County, California, where public transportation is a rare sight and relying on Uber will cost a fortune.

Because I wanted to attend the ColdPlay concert in Santa Clara, I found it it necessary to rent a car for that road trip from Orange County to San Francisco. I’m writing a part two to this post all about this road-trip experience.

For this post you’re reading now, however, I will go into a little bit of detail on my car rental experience in USA. 

I did a bit of research of course before booking my trip. And through a search online as well as friend’s recommendations I found that enterprise was the best choice for me. They have multiple locations and a nice variety of options for cars. I booked online and I did not choose a specific car, I chose the body type and made sure it has cruise control. Now, I was lucky to have a friend with me who had a local driver’s license and he had his own insurance, we ended up buying the insurance to cover the car anyway but having the local license made it easier and a lot less faff.

When we arrived at the enterprise branch in Huntington beach, we simply showed them the booking and the driver’s license, and in less than ten minutes we had our smitten clean Hyundai Elantra waiting for us outside.

To be honest, it isn’t a very luxurious car and I know that, but it was enough to get us to Santa Clara and back. The car was honestly very easy to drive, it was in really good condition considering it was a rental, and it had everything I wanted. Spacious boot for my luggage, automatic transmission, a low engine displacement meant less fuel consumption and most importantly for that 7 hours drive we needed cruise control.

Now for the driving part: Driving on the highway especially with cruise control is the easiest drive I ever did. We went from LA to Santa Clara and two lane road was pretty straight with little to none overtaking or having to pass someone.

If you’re like me coming from a city with NO RULES like Cairo and attempting to drive in cities like LA and San Fransisco, my advice will be to read up! You need to be aware of some rules that we are not used to, you need to know the different types of roads and different types of lanes, what you can and cannot do and what is permitted on each road and each type of car, there’s a lot there to study so I suggest you spend some time reading about it before attempting it.

I was lucky to have a friend with me who taught me and guided me, but if you don’t have someone to guide you, it will need a little of getting using to be able to master driving in the states.

Having said that, each state is different and even within one state things can be really different. For example driving in New York city is nothing like driving in Orange County. In a state like California most beach cities are more chilled, but if you hit down town LA things become a bit more intense. 

My one last words of advice when renting a car in USA will be to go for a trusted agency, get the insurance, and always take before pictures of the car and make sure everything is recorded on the condition, any scratches or bumps, make sure everything is working before taking off. Always ask what you can and cannot do before leaving the lot, ask if there any milage caps or if there is any paperwork required for you to be able to drive to specific cities or states.

I would definitely recommend renting over using transportation or Uber in Orange County, but if you’re going somewhere else check first if renting is the best option and always check if you have parking facilities at your accommodation.

That’s all I have for you.

Look out for part two when I tell you everything about my road trip in California soon!

Happy Travels!