You’re Driving in Mexico? Are You Crazy?!

When Jason and I decided to take a Yucatan road trip circling the peninsula, our friends and families thought we were crazy. “Do you want to end up hacked to pieces?” “Haven’t you been watching the news? They will kidnap you!” We assured them the Yucatan was free from all the terrors they heard on the news. These “hot” areas were hundreds of miles away and mostly concentrated on the US/Mexico border states.

 Researching Car Companies

I started to research how to rent a car in Mexico and the cost of it all and was aghast with how expensive it was through the usual car agencies (Hertz/Budget/Avis). For one week, a compact economy car was running over $600 with $700 in some cases!! In Mexico, you are required to have full coverage on the vehicle. There is no way around this because if you get into a car accident and do not have insurance, guess what? They will take you to jail. Most places do not let you rent the car without the insurance anyway, unless you can furnish proof that your credit card insurance or home insurance will cover you in Mexico. Just as a heads up, most don’t cover liability in Mexico. Even then you will have to wait for them to clear your claim which can be upwards of two to three days or more if it happens over the weekend. The police will keep you in custody until your home insurance can prove they will cover the damages. So just do yourself a favor, whatever car rental you choose, take the full Mexican insurance; saving a couple bucks in not worth a stay in jail. Well, now that we have that straightened out, I can tell you how I got my weekly rental for under $350! The secret? Don’t use an American car rental company! Their rental rates are outrageous! There are several Mexican car rental companies out there and you can do the research on those, but we decided on Easy Way Rent a Car.

Easy Way Rent a Car

Easy Way Rent a Car really was easy, convenient and reasonably priced. The reviews were mostly good ones and so we took the chance. We went on their website and received a nice quote and reserved right on there. There was a promotion at the time stating that if you “liked” their link on a social media sites, they would give you a discount depending on how many you used. We did 2 sites (Twitter and Facebook and received 15% off our rate of $365. We decided to rent a GPS at $7 a day as well so we ended up at $348 and change and just gave them the $350. After making the reservation, I was in contact with Fernando and Jesus via email to coordinate the pick-up and drop-off. We were arriving at Cancun Airport, but would be dropping off the car in Playa del Carmen where we would end our road trip and stay at the Paradisus La Perla for another 5 days. In addition to our own car rental, I also had to arrange two additional rentals for our family who were joining us at the Paradisus but wanted to do a couple of day excursions. They were very helpful and even waived the transfer fee for our subsequent rental (They charge a transfer fee for dropping off at a different location if the rental is less than a week long).

Picking Up the Car in Mexico

When we arrived at Cancun Airport, they were already there waiting for us at the agreed pick-up spot; the Berry Hill restaurant. The gentleman had an Easy Way Rent a Car logo on his shirt and was very courteous. He drove us to the Easy Way Rent a Car center which was only 5 minutes away. It was a small office and Fernando was there. He ran up the contract and there was a discrepancy with what I had calculated with the 15% off and what he had calculated. I mentioned it to him and he adjusted to the correct rate. They also forgot to give us the GPS until we asked for it, and I thought they were going to be sneaky and try and charge us on top of what we had already paid, but they just brought it out and handed it to us. We signed the contract, checked the car and were on our way to our Yucatan Adventure!