The Great American Road Trip - Part One: Getting a Car

After a month of “acclimatizing” in the states and spending some time with the family we were heading of on our two month road trip through the MASSIVE U.S. of A. Getting everything ready for the trip was a nightmare so let me first discuss all the hiccups we had before we even started. One of the main things was transport. We did not have a car. So we investigated all our options and we settled on renting a car or buying a car and selling it at the end. We were looking into a van rental but we could not find a place in PA.

Renting or Buying a car

Buying a car: 

We happened upon a good deal for a car that I thought would just be amazing to have. A classic Pontiac Firebird convertible. Nothing sounds more American than that. So we took it for a drive and decided against it. We thought spending over 10 000 miles in that would not be the most comfortable. Next we went to a few places looking at cars. Long story short we decided against buying. The reasons why we decided this? For one thing if the car breaks down along the way we would be pretty screwed. With buying a second hand car you never know what you get. Another thing is we would only have a week after we get back to sell it again.

Renting a car: 

Next option was renting a car. We investigated all the rental companies and decided that Enterprise was the cheapest option. We heard that if you rent a car short term from city to city it is cheaper but we found that that is definitely not the case. So we went to the local office and talked with them. Because we were renting it for such a long time they gave us a lot of discount. For one they cut the millage limit and gave us a big discount on the actual rental. Another thing is we had to get insurance (I will discuss this in a bit) but we could not get it through the same company so we had to pay an extra driver fee. But they also cut it from 25 dollars a day to 5 dollars a day. All and all Enterprise was amazing. It was still really expensive renting a car but they did cut the price A LOT. We opted for a economy car because well it’s cheaper. The day we went to pick the car up I asked them so which car exactly are we getting. Well it turns out it was a Chevrolet Spark…. Well I am a tall guy and driving that much in that car would not be optimal. He saw the look on my face and told me he will give us a free upgrade to a Ford focus. Much, much better. But I just had to ask him. When we were walking in I saw this 2014 Dodge Charger parked outside. So I asked him. “How much for the Dodge Charger?” He looked it up and it turned out to be only 10 percent more for the Dodge. It was a V6 muscle car so the first thing is how heavy is it on Fuel. Turns out we got 30MPG (13 KPL) on our trip. Not too bad. It was very comfortable and spacious and definitely held its own on the road. On the stretches where the winds through cars all over the road we were very happy we were not in a tiny tin box. All and all we knew we would never buy a car like that and what is more American than a Pontiac Firebird. A Dodge Charger ;). We gave her a very fitting name. “The American Dream”.

Getting Car Insurance

The next thing you need in the states is car insurance. We looked at a few options and Lindsay called a company (Esurance) to get us sorted. Lindsay and I wanted to be on the same insurance because if we were we did not need to pay an extra drivers fee on the rental car. BUT!! Lindsay could not get on the same insurance as me because at the time she had a New Mexico driver’s license. But as a South African I was fine?? We ended up buying two different insurance packages through two different companies but through the same guy. I of course being a foreigner paid way more than her. Another thing is we had to get the insurance for 6 months with the option of canceling it after the two month we were in the states. We asked him more than 5 times if the insurance is full comprehensive because that is what Enterprise needed. He kept saying yes and even on the email return it stated that. Well turns out he was lying. At the end of our trip we found out that no we only have 3^rd party insurance. (Thank goodness we didn’t get in an accident). One more thing…. He just went ahead and charged our credit card with a 300 dollar fee for his services. Thanks buddy!!!

Planning our route: This was one of the easier things we did. Seeing that we were meeting up with a few friends along the way this took the least amount of planning. We also wanted to hit up a few national parks along the way.