I've been avoiding this because it is such a complex topic, however, I think it is important because so many people are afraid of driving in the UK "on the wrong side of the road." Of course, the wrong side depends on where you learned to drive, but it does take some adjusting of our brains when we have to adjust our driving to such a basic thing.
Taking the Train or a Tour
Yes, you can avoid driving by taking the train or a tour, but there are problems with both of these options.
- First, taking the train means you can only get off the train where it stops. You can see a lot of countryside from a train window, but you are really missing about 95% of a country when you just look at it from a window. In addition, when you get off the train, you are inevitably in the center of a city or town, which means you have to take a cab to a hotel or walk there dragging your luggage. And you will only see larger towns and cities because that is where the train stops. You will not see the tiny places in the country, nor will you be able to pull over and experience the countryside itself. Now, there are some towns where you do not want to drive, such as London, Edinburgh, York, and a couple of other places, so what I usually do is tack these onto the beginning or end of a trip, and drive in between.
- Tours are OK if you never have been somewhere, but they will take you primarily to the places other tourists always go. You will tend to stay in large hotels because they have elevators, and you will be constantly with a group, which means you are very unlucky to meet and chat with local people or British travelers. And tours sometimes make extra profits by taking you to places where you are likely to spend money. An example would be the "rug-making demonstration" I once experienced while on a cruise tour in Turkey. Basically, it turned out to be a rug store, where you got a little information on how the rugs were made, but mostly a big sales pitch on why you should invest in their rugs.
Personally, while renting a car and getting used to driving on the "wrong" side can be scary at first, I would never choose anything else because I like to go to small places that other people might not want to go to.
Renting a Car
When renting a car in ANY country, check prices between rental agencies and among cities. On the UK trip in 2022, a small automatic car for 28 days would have cost me a whopping $4,000 at Heathrow Airport, $2,800 at Edinburgh Airport, and $1,146 in York. And this was only checking Enterprise.
Also, especially in the UK, you want to rent the smallest automatic they offer. Even though I can drive a manual transmission, I know I will have to be focusing a lot on just driving safely and i do not want to have to worry about shifting gears while turning and remembering which lane to get into.
Personally, I also like to rent from one of the major rental companies, rather than take a chance on an agency I know nothing about.
And roads and parking spots in the UK tend to be very narrow. Here is an example of a situation I recently experienced in a very typical parking lot. (My rental car was the black one in the middle.) Remember that my driver's seat was on the right side of the black car which I had rented, and I am too old to try climbing over the console to get into the seat!!
Luckily, that car was gone the next morning when I needed to leave. That last spot really should have been designated for a motorcycle, but this car did get in, and its door was on the right side, so I assume he was skinny and limber enough to get out and back in.
So, don't let the rental agency try to upgrade you to a bigger car--you want a small one you can park easily. If they want to upgrade you, ask for a car with the GPS turned on. That and the backup camera and the avoidance warnings are really helpful in crowded conditions. TIP: Car rental agencies want you to pay extra for a GPS, but many of the cars come with it because it cannot be turned off!!!
Oh, and one last thing. Check with your US auto insurance policy to make sure it will cover those extra fees for damage coverage the rental agency wants to sell you, and make sure you can see it in writing--don't take your insurance company's verbal response!! If you car insurance will not cover extra damage fees, check with your credit card company and use that card to rent the car. Ditto about getting coverage policies in writing. (I had damage to my rental car in Florida over a year ago when it was parked in a grocery store parking lot. I got a bill for over $2,800, and my specific Chase Visa card paid for it. One thing I did not do and should have done, however, is file a police report even for a parking lot scrape.)
Learning to Drive Again
More tomorrow....
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