Is it safe to rent a car and drive in Cabo??

Just wondering if anyone can recommend a good car rental place? I see Avis and Payless on this thread.... are there many others? Is it possible to request a Jeep? Approx $$? How about parking around the tourist areas of downtown Cabo San Lucas?

We rented from Payless when we went there last year. The car was inexpensive, a cute little VW. We had to get insurance through them or it would have been 2,000usd to rent the car for the week. The gas gauge also didn't work. So you might want to keep an eye on that. We stayed at the Hilton and it cost us $50.00 to go to and from Cabo san Lucas around the mall and stuff. Traffic got a little crazy here and there. there were people driving on the side of the road and stuff. If you only plan on staying close to the resort for the most part I wouldn't worry about renting a car, if you plan on going out a lot or going to Todos Santos (amazing place. Check out Art&Beer if you go) or La Paz I would rent a car. Hope that helps a little.

thank you for this helpful information!!!

The driving seemed easy in Cabo! i wouldn't be worried about driving at all. just for personal rides though, i'd just take the bus, so easy and cheap! but foryoru group, maybe hire one.

So I have a rental car reservation (I used Hotwire) through Alamo, and I'm wondering about the insurance piece too. My insurance company (State Farm) only covers like 50 miles from the border, so Cabo isn't covered. The research I've done gives completely mixed results. Several sites I've seen say varying versions of this:

"Mexican law requires liability insurance to be included in the rate for the car rental. Many car rental companies deny this is the case, but it is included--without exception." and a couple sites that seem to be trying to sell insurance say you must buy it and plan for it to double the price of your rental. Anyone know what the truth is?

I rented a car for my site visit and thought it was really easy to drive around! We only rented for a couple of days and got a great deal through the hotel. They brought the car straight to the hotel we were staying at and gave us a great deal...25/day. I highly recommend it... and having a car gives you the freedom to check out many hotels and beaches that normally would cost an arm and a leg with a taxi cab.

Shani

For those of you who have rented a car... how much was the insurance? I just found out that my insurance coverage here at home will not cover a rental car down there. So I would love to know how much this will cost us.

 

Thanks

It wasn't much at all I'm wanting to say around 50usd. Maybe a little more. I reserved our car from payless online and got insurance with it too. When we got there they said that insurance wouldn't work and we HAD to get it through them. If we didn't the car wouldve been crazy expensive to rent, $2OOO.OO. So if you make a reservation online DO NOT get insurance with it wait until you get there, and get it directly from the company. We ended up wasting about $75 on the other insurance. So keep that in mind so you don't get any surprises like we did.

Do you remember if that was $50 per day or $50 total for the whole time?

We just got back Saturday. I had called my credit card company before hand and was told I was covered, but that I needed to decline the rental car insurance. We'll I thought I knew what I was doing but probably didn't listen as well as I should have. Alamo said I was required by law to have their liability insurance, but I could decline everything else which is what my cc company would cover. The price wasn't worth arguing, and like I said I didn't have my ducks in a row, so I pushed back a little and then agreed to pay $8 a day (I think?) and we went on our merry way.

 

The drivers were crazy, but when you compare it to in the US where most drivers are doing anything but driving, its pretty safe. The road to Todos Santos was probably the worst, but only because I felt like every third car was on the wrong side of the road. :-) The key is to actually pay attention to the driving, not your cell phone, not the iPod, not the scenery, etc.