Why are so many people scared of driving while abroad?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. Europeans drive super fast on tight curvy roads.

2. Some countries like Italy have speed cameras every 2 feet.

So proceed cautiously around curves and don't speed. Omg, so hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never learned manual, and it's just not fun for us. We use the train, the bus, uber to get to places we want to go. And if we really want to get out to the country where those aren't available we hire a driver.

Well, sure, if you want to triple your cost of transport to see remote locations and be under the gun of a timeclock after hiring a driver, by all means. It also is annoying having to pay for extra food and lodging for the driver when you have multiple destinations that require driving for days with multiple stops in order to see harder to access areas.

[Anonymous]

Most other countries actually have decent public transportation so why drive?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Europeans drive super fast on tight curvy roads.

2. Some countries like Italy have speed cameras every 2 feet.

So proceed cautiously around curves and don't speed. Omg, so hard.

Why do you care so much? Jebus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most other countries actually have decent public transportation so why drive?

Not everywhere. Have you tried to get to the English countryside? Or how about a beautiful location like Kamicochi in the Japanese Alps? To get to Kamikochi, you have to get up extremely early in the morning to travel to a remote bus hub, the bus hub. Then you have to wait until the bus leaves. Then you have to make sure you're back in time to get on the bus and leave. Accomodations can be sparse and you have to blow hours and hours and hours on transport just to get to and from. Same with an UNESCO site like Shirakawa-go. You'd have to spend 3 hours taking the train, then blow another 90 minutes traveling by bus to see it. Then you'd have to leave when the bus wants to, not on your own time. Huge wastes of time.

I mean sure, if all you ever want to see when you travel are major cities, take the train. But you miss out on sooooo much actual culture of daily and average citizens when you don't go to harder to access areas, smaller cities, and towns. Best Japanese food in my life was driving through some small remote town in the Japanese Alps where they spoke zero English and we were probably the only gaijin they saw for weeks. They fed us a meal consisting of all sorts of crazy mushrooms, herbs, veggies and other plants they foraged around them in the local woods. You'd never get to it by bus or train and only using the Internet to screen for places to eat.

[Anonymous]

We just got back from a trip in LATAM where we rented a car. We always drive and have, like other posters, done so on 6 continents. That said, DH and I were commenting in the car on our trip that it makes sense that many Americans don't drive in any country but US or Canada. Traffic rules and customs are incredibly different and many Americans aren't able to function in traffic that is akin to orderly chaos. Americans like rules and lines, and knowing what their lane is. So I can see how driving in MENA or LATAM may be daunting. Plus, you have to be relaxed enough to not be bothered by the chaos and just roll with it. Most Americans (particularly VA drivers) cannot handle that, and like to tell other drivers what to do. In sum, it's a good thing that most Americans don't drive while abroad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We just got back from a trip in LATAM where we rented a car. We always drive and have, like other posters, done so on 6 continents. That said, DH and I were commenting in the car on our trip that it makes sense that many Americans don't drive in any country but US or Canada. Traffic rules and customs are incredibly different and many Americans aren't able to function in traffic that is akin to orderly chaos. Americans like rules and lines, and knowing what their lane is. So I can see how driving in MENA or LATAM may be daunting. Plus, you have to be relaxed enough to not be bothered by the chaos and just roll with it. Most Americans (particularly VA drivers) cannot handle that, and like to tell other drivers what to do. In sum, it's a good thing that most Americans don't drive while abroad.

Oh, and when we picked up our van, agency didn't have the one that we had initially selected and only had a large manual van. Luckily, we can drive manual and it wasn't an issue, but we did comment that it would've been a disaster if we need an automatic vehicle for our party size.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More narrow roads. Hard to get automatic transmissions. Signs in a foreign language. Parking can be challenging in tourist areas. Laws differ. Customs/traffic safety culture is unfamiliar. You want to see the scenery, and perhaps have wine with dinner. Jet lag.

None of that makes for a relaxing vacation, when paired with driving responsibilities.

You are not some impressive God OP. We just have a different idea of what a great vacation looks like.

Nearly everywhere worth traveling has signs in Roman alphabet.
This post is so dumb.

I find it easier to navigate around cities where street names are things like River Rd, Mountain View Rd, Revolution Square, or East-West Boundary Blvd. I have more trouble navigating in foreign languages even when written in the Roman alphabet, because I don't know the words for square, blvd, east-west or road in Czech, nor the names for mountain or river in Norwegian, so I can't store the name of the street I'm looking at in my brain easily.

Yet Cyrillic alphabet or Chinese characters!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We just got back from a trip in LATAM where we rented a car. We always drive and have, like other posters, done so on 6 continents. That said, DH and I were commenting in the car on our trip that it makes sense that many Americans don't drive in any country but US or Canada. Traffic rules and customs are incredibly different and many Americans aren't able to function in traffic that is akin to orderly chaos. Americans like rules and lines, and knowing what their lane is. So I can see how driving in MENA or LATAM may be daunting. Plus, you have to be relaxed enough to not be bothered by the chaos and just roll with it. Most Americans (particularly VA drivers) cannot handle that, and like to tell other drivers what to do. In sum, it's a good thing that most Americans don't drive while abroad.

Most Americans are bad drivers, so agree that its best that they are not on the road. Also agree that knowing how to drive in chaos takes a different set of skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We just got back from a trip in LATAM where we rented a car. We always drive and have, like other posters, done so on 6 continents. That said, DH and I were commenting in the car on our trip that it makes sense that many Americans don't drive in any country but US or Canada. Traffic rules and customs are incredibly different and many Americans aren't able to function in traffic that is akin to orderly chaos. Americans like rules and lines, and knowing what their lane is. So I can see how driving in MENA or LATAM may be daunting. Plus, you have to be relaxed enough to not be bothered by the chaos and just roll with it. Most Americans (particularly VA drivers) cannot handle that, and like to tell other drivers what to do. In sum, it's a good thing that most Americans don't drive while abroad.

You're acting like it is advanced calculus. It is not hard to get a feel for the customs while driving. We drove pretty much the entire country of Portugal, no problem. Including very, veerrry narrow streets in medieval towns like Obidos. We just got back from England and drove probably 1000 miles all over the country side and other bigger cities like Bath. It was completely on the opposite side with circles everywhere. No big deal. We've driven all over Thailand many, maaaaaany times, which is again on the opposite side and there are far less rules than England. Traffic is chaotic in Bangkok when you need to get out of it or onto the edges of the city, but it is no big deal. You just have to put you Americanism away and realize that people don't get pissed off when they get cut off or merged in front of like they do in the US. There's chaos but no road rage. And driving all over Belgium, France (including super small roads on Alsace etc), Germany, the entire country of Croatia (which included needing to cross immigration in Bosnia) was so easy.

It does not take genius level intellect to get a feel on the pulse of how people or nation drives. Americans are just scared of the world too much. Omg, what if I run into a corrupt cop? Omg, what if I take the wrong turn !!?? Omg, what if I make a mistake?

Who cares? If you make a mistake while driving. You just stop and brush it off while not panicking. Honestly, it's much scarier driving in the US where everyone seems to have road rage and there are 300,000,000+ guns in circulation, many of which people bring while driving. Taking a wrong turn in Baltimore is 1000x scarier in Baltimore than doing it.in Hungary or Bosnia, lol. I've done both, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We just got back from a trip in LATAM where we rented a car. We always drive and have, like other posters, done so on 6 continents. That said, DH and I were commenting in the car on our trip that it makes sense that many Americans don't drive in any country but US or Canada. Traffic rules and customs are incredibly different and many Americans aren't able to function in traffic that is akin to orderly chaos. Americans like rules and lines, and knowing what their lane is. So I can see how driving in MENA or LATAM may be daunting. Plus, you have to be relaxed enough to not be bothered by the chaos and just roll with it. Most Americans (particularly VA drivers) cannot handle that, and like to tell other drivers what to do. In sum, it's a good thing that most Americans don't drive while abroad.

You're acting like it is advanced calculus. It is not hard to get a feel for the customs while driving. We drove pretty much the entire country of Portugal, no problem. Including very, veerrry narrow streets in medieval towns like Obidos. We just got back from England and drove probably 1000 miles all over the country side and other bigger cities like Bath. It was completely on the opposite side with circles everywhere. No big deal. We've driven all over Thailand many, maaaaaany times, which is again on the opposite side and there are far less rules than England. Traffic is chaotic in Bangkok when you need to get out of it or onto the edges of the city, but it is no big deal. You just have to put you Americanism away and realize that people don't get pissed off when they get cut off or merged in front of like they do in the US. There's chaos but no road rage. And driving all over Belgium, France (including super small roads on Alsace etc), Germany, the entire country of Croatia (which included needing to cross immigration in Bosnia) was so easy.

It does not take genius level intellect to get a feel on the pulse of how people or nation drives. Americans are just scared of the world too much. Omg, what if I run into a corrupt cop? Omg, what if I take the wrong turn !!?? Omg, what if I make a mistake?

Who cares? If you make a mistake while driving. You just stop and brush it off while not panicking. Honestly, it's much scarier driving in the US where everyone seems to have road rage and there are 300,000,000+ guns in circulation, many of which people bring while driving. Taking a wrong turn in Baltimore is 1000x scarier in Baltimore than doing it.in Hungary or Bosnia, lol. I've done both, too.

It really depends where you're going. You don't want a car in Paris or London or Toronto. It's more useful for rural areas.

We travel both in rental cars and on public transportation.

I met more locals on public transportation than I ever have when we had rental cars. I also enjoyed meeting other travelers on trains.

[Anonymous]

Because I don’t like to drive and I do like to take mass transit. I’m glad you’ve found a way of travelling that you enjoy but maybe you should put your American conviction your preferences must be universal and correct aside and allow that other people’s preferences might be equally or more valid? To borrow one of your examples, shirakawago is lovely but getting there by bus is especially fun since you pass through a number of small cities and chat with Japanese tourists going about their business. Another person’s experience and enjoyment isn’t invalid because they happened to experience different unique adventures than you did.

[Anonymous]

My husband is from Ecuador and he didn’t even want to drive when we went back. There are no lanes on some roads that are the equivalent of four lanes wide. It’s a free for all and tons of honking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Countries I have driven in:

USA
UK
Canada
Iceland
France
Holland (where I got a ticket for 3 kmh over on the motorway)
Belgium
Italy
Australia
New Zealand
Fiji
Singapore
Uganda
South Africa
Senegal
Botswana
US Virgin Islands (I say "country" because they drive on the wrong side of the road there)
Texas
Florida

You mean Netherlands the country? Or Holland as a region within the Netherlands that consists of the two provinces of North and South Holland?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because I don’t like to drive and I do like to take mass transit. I’m glad you’ve found a way of travelling that you enjoy but maybe you should put your American conviction your preferences must be universal and correct aside and allow that other people’s preferences might be equally or more valid? To borrow one of your examples, shirakawago is lovely but getting there by bus is especially fun since you pass through a number of small cities and chat with Japanese tourists going about their business. Another person’s experience and enjoyment isn’t invalid because they happened to experience different unique adventures than you did.

What, and you can't pass through all of the same smaller towns and cities that you see on a bus versus if you drive? The biggest difference is that you COULD stop in any of those towns too if you saw something that piqued your interest on the way if you drove. The bus isn't going to stop any time you want to see something off the beaten path. That's a huge minus. And then when you get to Shirakawago, you have to leave when the bus tells you to. You can't go on your own time.