Florida hire cars and road rules 🇺🇸

Part of my Real Florida Guide

If you want to enjoy all that my Real Florida Guide offers, you’ll need to bag yourself some wheels.

The beauty of having a car at your disposal is the freedom to venture further afield wherever and whenever you fancy – something that those shuttle buses and Uber’s can’t offer! If you want to explore the state of Florida fully, then a car is pretty much an essential. Whilst there are about a million and one plus points, there are also some things you need to be mindful of too.

The Covid effect (still affecting us in 2022)

Once upon a time, pre-pandemic, hiring at car in Florida was easy and surprisingly inexpensive. Unfortunately, prices have now skyrocketed to something of an eye-watering level, almost 80% up on what you would have been paying back in 2019! So yes, this puts a dampener on the whole business of hiring a car, somewhat.

When Covid smacked the world in the face back in March 2020, we saw foreign holidays and tourism take a nosedive. This meant that rental car companies did what they had to in order to keep their businesses afloat – they sold off up to 40% of their fleet because they could not afford to keep them. Then, as travel and tourism began to pick up from late 2021 onwards, the rental car companies have really struggled to service their client base – so as demand grew, so did prices. In 2022, our rental (a standard mid-range SUV with Thrifty) ended up setting us back almost £2000, which is around £200 less than our villa accommodation for the three weeks! So yeah, not cheap.

But this price hike should hopefully be temporary. As the world continues to recover from the pandemic and car rental businesses restock, hopefully we will see prices return to a more palatable level again.

Who to choose, what to rent and add-ons

There are so many companies that you can choose to rent your car through. The main players are Hertz, Enterprise Rent A Car, Europcar, Budget, Dollar, Sixt and Thrifty. In all of the time that we have been visiting Florida, we have probably tried the whole lot of them. None particularly stand out as being very good or very poor, they are much of a muchness!

Most companies are based at the airport, but be mindful that some have administrative desks there but hold their cars a distance away. There’s nothing specifically wrong with this set up but it does mean taking a shuttle off site to collect your vehicle, which can be frustrating, especially after a long flight. We tend to steer clear of these companies for this reason.

At the desk, be prepared for the hard sell on all sorts of insurances, additional drivers and a Sun Pass – the latter being a pay-as-you-go, charge the card initiative that gives you drive through access to toll roads. You may be tired after your flight, but stand your ground as much of this is not needed! When it comes to insurance for break downs, the basic package will nearly always do and this is usually purchased automatically when buying your rental. Additional extras like lost keys and windscreens usually come at an extortionate cost – so if you think you want this, factor this into your price compassions and be sure to do your homework. Much can be purchased upfront, minus the ‘commission focussed babble’ at the desk. After all, you’re on holiday now and time is precious!

It’s obvious, but always make sure you shop around to ensure you get the best deal for you. Mustangs are great fun, but they won’t be suitable for more than two people. There’s plenty of cheaper alternatives out there than the American ‘muscle car’ and most are almost new. Unless we are feeling particularly flush, we always opt for a mid range SUV. We find that it’s the perfect size to transport us (and our suitcases) and it’s comfortable to drive on the busy freeways as sometimes being higher up in traffic is a bonus.

It’s always a good idea to put two of you down as the driver, especially if you’re going long distances or you take turns to drive on a night out. The right hire companies shouldn’t charge you any extra for this, provided you both live at the same address and are over 25.

One point to mention is that the majority of hire cars in Florida have automatic gearboxes, so if you’re used to manual, be prepared. They also don’t come with in-built Sat-Nav – not especially helpful if it’s your first time navigating Florida! Money-minded companies disable this feature in the hope that you’ll spend more to have it reinstated. Of course they do! The very last thing you want to do is leave the airport and think ‘where now?’ – because you’re straight out onto the busy interstate. However, if you have mobile data on your phone, we find that Google maps works just as well. So if you can, use maps and don’t pay over the odds for Sat Nav as well as your hire car!

Sometimes your hire car will develop a fault, like any other car you will have owned yourself. This has happened to us on three occasions – each time being something simple such as a brake light out. Whilst simple, this is illegal so it’s perfectly acceptable to return your hire car for a fix or a replacement. To save a lot of frustration and wasted time trying to find a hire car base that you’ll find has since closed down in the pandemic, sometimes it’s just easier to return it to the airport where they will switch it quickly for you.

Lastly, never ever drive the car away without giving it a thorough check over. I’m not wholly convinced the hire companies do this particularly well themselves. If there’s any scratches and dents that aren’t on the paperwork, take photos and make it known to the company – otherwise you could cop for them!

Driving in Florida

Firstly, you drive on the right hand side of the road in Florida – you’ll quickly learn the hard way if you don’t! Secondly, you’ll be surprised by how big things are compared to the UK – the lanes, the car parking spaces – the monster trucks!

You might want to do a spot of reading up about the rules of the road before arriving in America – things such as how to exit the freeways, ‘merges’ and turning right on a red light.

Orlando traffic on the Interstate 4 around the theme parks can be a real pain nowadays. This has been growing and growing over the past five or so years and sees miles of queuing traffic if you hit it at the wrong time. In actual fact, the wrong times greatly outweigh the right times nowadays, which is just unfortunate.

Once you do escape the ‘tourist traffic’ areas, then driving in Florida is almost pleasant. Away from the queues, the impatient commuters and the constant distraction of billboards, you’ll be driving past vast lakes with glistening blue water and lush greenery.

I mentioned Sun Pass earlier. Florida – especially the Orlando area – has a lot of toll roads! Whilst not expensive, do be mindful of these if you don’t have a Sun Pass, as you’ll need to have some spare dollars and dimes in your glove box. As such, we usually do opt for the Sun Pass, but like everything, it’s cheaper to purchase online before you get to the States. The Sun Pass can easily be picked up at a kiosk in the airport via a QR code on a pre-downloaded mobile app. The toll fees will simply get added to your account at the end of your trip.

Petrol is still cheap when compared to the UK – although it’s still far from the good old days of 2019 when you could fill your tank for the equivalent of around £25! In 2022, prices are around $4.50 a gallon (yes, they do gallons in America, not litres). When compared to Uber prices, driving yourself is clearly very much cheaper.

There are ‘gas stations’ a plenty in Florida, the most recognised names being BP, 7-Eleven, Murphy, Shell, Race Track and Wawa. Supermarkets have petrol stations too. When filling up, remember that the black pump is unleaded and the green is diesel, the opposite of what it is in the UK! You usually have to go into the station shop and pay before you fill too, again being back to front of what we do in the UK! Best guesses are the way to go and if you don’t put in as much as you pay for, your card will be adjusted accordingly over the coming days.

Now you’re good to go!