When we travel, we sometimes rent a car, but it can eat up a big part of your travel budget. We have discovered ways to cut those costs and still have a great trip. A lot really depends on the type of trip, a road trip or a visit to a great city somewhere in the world.

When we travel to a city, like Paris, London, Honolulu, San Diego, or even San Jose del Cabo, etc… we almost never rent a car for a couple of reasons. Number one is that most of these cities have great public transportation systems and driving and finding parking is a real pain in the neck. Additionally, when we stay in big city hotels or condo resorts, most of them no longer offer free parking and there usually isn’t any parking close to them as well. In fact, we are currently staying in Honolulu for 12 days, and the resort wants almost $70 per night for parking. That’s more than twice the cost of a rental car.

For these types of trips, we will use a hotel shuttle or Uber to get to the resort and not have to worry about the expense of the rental car, parking and of course, insurance. In places like Cabo, the insurance can be more than twice the cost of the rental car. You can read about another cost saving on insurance, especially for Cabo, here. During our Honolulu trip, we used Uber to get to the resort and back and a couple of short Uber trips as well. When we want to do a full day trip, we will just rent a car for the day. We wanted to visit a Plumaria farm on the north side of the island and stop off for a pineapple taste at the Dole facility, so we rented a car for the day. On another day we wanted to visit a botanical garden and wanted a car for that day as well.

Before our trip, I used the different travel apps to see which one give me the best options for one day rental locations that were close to our resort. Maybe a 5-10 minute walk away. I settled on Expedia for this trip and booked a car for one day trip for $61 and for the second day trip I was able to get an economy car for $41 per day. Just for fun, I visited the concierge desk to ask about daily rentals and was referred to a local company but they wanted $140 per day for a car. I also checked at the in house rental car desk at one of the hotels and they wanted $135 per day for the car. So, we did two different car rental days for less than the cost of the one recommended by the hotel.

On the other hand, if visiting a country where we are doing a road trip, like we did a few months ago to Australia and New Zealand, we stayed at locations that did not charge for parking and booked our rental in advance after researching the best rates. Australia and New Zealand also have more restrictive insurance rules and you have to purchase their required insurance on your rental car. You cannot use your credit card or travel insurance to cover the car rental.

On our road trip to Banff in February, we were learned that you had to have all weather tires, and they recommended all wheel drive vehicles to drive into Banff National Park between October and May. So, we found a rental company in Coeur d’Alene, where we could leave our personal vehicle and rent an all wheel drive car for a safer trip through the Canadian Rockies. In this case, we also splurged and paid for the full coverage insurance because of the increased danger of driving on snowy, shushy or icy roads. Fortunately we did not have any problems and could have done that trip without the insurance, but the peace of mind and the all wheel drive was worth the expense. It’s not always just about saving money to win the car rental game it is also about having fun on your trip without the worries.

Another way that we have won the rental car game is when we do an African Safari. On our first safari, we rented a van and drove throughout Kruger National Park each day. A great trip, but on subsequent trips we found it was more relaxing to just book the trip with a safari company and leave the driving to them. We saw more wildlife and it made the trip more fulfilling. We would recommend that you look in to a safari from Robin Pope Safaris or from Gracepatt Safaris. We would be happy to help your book a safari.

I hope these ideas will be a benefit to you in your upcoming trips.