Everyone loves the idea of a road trip with their closest friends. It’s the ultimate adventure, hitting the road just to see where it ends. Then there’s the cheesy throwback songs that make for hours and hours of singalong car journeys.
It’s hard to imagine that it could get any better than that, but that’s when you start to consider the idea of a road trip in a country you’ve never been to before.
It’s one thing to take a road trip from your home town, in your own trusty vehicle, but starting somewhere completely new, and driving a route you’ve never driven before, in a hire car, that’s adventure.
The only trouble is that planning a road trip in a country that’s completely foreign to you can be a little more tricky. You need to go through the hassle of hiring a car, getting all your fellow road trippers to the starting point, and figuring out a route worth driving.
To help you plan a successful road trip in a foreign country, here are a few tips and pointers to guide you through the process.
Choosing who to take with you
An important part of planning your road trip is choosing who you want as your fellow road trippers. We all have certain friends or family members that we love to bits, but wouldn’t want to spend hours in a car with.
Driving can be stressful at the best of times, but when you’re driving a completely foreign route in another country, you want to be surrounded by those that, yes make you laugh and keep you entertained for the hours of monotonous driving, but also those that you can trust to be supportive, sensible, and helpful when you need them.
Choosing a driver
Once you’ve decided on your road trip group, you’ll need to decide on who’s driving. You might decide on just one of you, or maybe you want to switch up the driving responsibility, to avoid stressing and tiring out any one person.
When choosing a driver, you want to choose someone that’s confident driving in a foreign country, possibly on the opposite side of the road, depending on where you go.
If you’re all fairly young, it can be a good idea to delegate the most experienced driver as the driver of your trip. You should also look into the minimum age for hiring a car at your destination. Some countries won’t hire out cars to those under 21, and some will incur a ‘young driver charge’.
Hiring a car
Road tripping in a foreign country will usually involve hiring a car, and if this isn’t something you’ve done before, there are a few things to know beforehand.
Choosing a hire car company
There are thousands of car hire companies out there, and to avoid any problems with your trip, it can pay to go with a reputable company. You hear all sorts of car hire horror stories from those that tried to save a few bucks by going with independent and unheard of companies.
Different companies will offer car hire in different places, but if you’re looking for a few safe and reputable ones, try Europcar, Enterprise, Hertz or Sixt. These are all safe options to go with when hiring a car.
Protecting yourself
Car hire companies love to make money where they can. A simple scratch could end up costing you hundreds. So our advice is, always opt for that extra insurance they offer you when you pick up your car (and believe me, they will offer it!). It might be an extra expense, but you’ll have that added protection, and you can enjoy your road trip without constantly fretting about the car.
Also, take a quick video of your hire car before you drive off in it. If there are any existing scratches, bumps, dents or marks, make sure you have evidence that they were there when you picked up the car. It might sound pedantic, but you don’t want to be paying for anything that wasn’t your fault.
What do you want from a route?
The next decision you’re going to need to make when planning your road trip is what route to take. This can be pretty difficult to work out and plan, especially if you’ve never even visited the country you want to road trip through. Here are a few things to consider when planning what route you’re going to take.
Scenery
Even if you’re traveling with the most interesting of people, a boring drive is still a boring drive. If there’s nothing to see but road for miles, you might want to consider taking a different route that’s a little more scenic. Sure, a scenic route might take you a little longer, but having those photo-worthy spots to stop off at along the way can make all the difference.
If the route is interesting to drive, you’re less likely to get tired, bored and irritable. Instead, you’ll all marvel at the amazing sights along the way. There’ll be plenty more opportunities to pull over for a selfie, and that’s plenty more opportunities for the driver to have a break.
Gas stations
The last thing you want to happen on your road trip is for your fuel gage to drop to low, and there not to be a gas station for hundreds of miles.
When planning your route, check out how many gas stations there are along the way. If there’s loads, great. If they’re few and fair between, you might need to be a little more sensible with your fuel (no more wheel spins or doughnuts!).
Civilisation
Depending on where you’re heading on your road trip, you might find a route that’s beautiful and scenic, but there might not be any civilisation for miles.
Fair enough, you might be looking for a getaway, but what if you break down, or need to stop to use a restroom? What if you get a little peckish, or decide you want to stopover somewhere rather than driving through the night?
Check that there’s at least some nearby civilisation on your route, whether it’s a nearby town, or even just a motel or garage. It could make all the difference in your journey.
A worthwhile destination
Generally, the point of road trips isn’t just to drive aimlessly. If you want your trip to have direction, you want to have a worthwhile destination, somewhere that you’re all looking forward to arriving at.
Without an exciting destination, the drive is going to get boring pretty quickly, and before long you’ll start asking yourself where you’re even going.
Pick a good destination and you’ll have an exciting car journey there, with something to look forward to, and you’ll have plenty of stories to go over and memories to relive and recount on the journey home.
To sum up…
Whilst it might be easy to hop in a car and go when you’re starting from your home town, it takes a little more planning before you can set off on a road trip in a foreign country. It might be more effort during the planing stage, but it will be well worth it when you set off, trust me.
If you want to see just how amazing a road trip in a foreign country can be, check out the video of our Croatia road trip – you might just be inspired to start planning your own trip!
I live in the UK, in the country’s most uneventful city, where the most interesting story in the local paper is about banning dressing gowns in supermarkets.
I travel and I write, because surely there are more interesting stories than that to write about and share.