Renting a Car and Driving in Puerto Rico
So, you've decided to rent a car in Puerto Rico, good for you, seriously, you've unlocked so much exploration with your own ride. Once you pick up your rental car, you'll be off to the races. You'll likely head straight to the interstate. Depending on your flight arrival time, you'll encounter heavy, aggressive traffic. If you already read my quick recap of 5 (or more) things, then you'll have the short version of my take on driving in Puerto Rico.
Downtown San Juan was more tame of a driving experience. Less F1 racing, but narrow streets and people soliciting at stop light intersections. There is actually decent street parking options, but spots can be tough to get into. That might just be me though, my days of talented parallel parking were many years ago and I was basically driving a bus (Hyundai Sante Fe). But, if I can park that bus in downtown San Juan, I have faith in you too!
I love Old San Juan, but beware that parking here can be tricky. We had a plan to park at this parking garage Ballaja Parking Garage but it ended up eluding us. After spending time in Old San Juan, I'm grateful for that, the drive out from that garage would have been more difficult as it’s deep into Old San Juan. The roads are narrow here and cobblestone and there are a lot of pedestrians, so I recommend parking on the fringe and then walking in to explore this area. We ended up parking here: Estacionamiento La Puntilla - Municipio de San Juan and the location was great. However, there is a time limit and we way exceeded it which left us unable to leave the gate. We had to go find the attendant for the lot, pay them a fee and then were able to leave. Once again though, had one of our daughters not spoken Spanish, we would have been stuck. The reviews for that parking lot are pretty accurate too, you’ll either have a fantastic experience or a potentially terrible experience. The money we paid to leave may have not even been necessary and we got scammed, but it was only a few dollars so I’m not worried about it. The lot is in a flood zone so rain can be treacherous, mud and puddles can be awful and some of the staff can be mean. Or, you might find an easy, flat parking spot, pay a few dollars and have no issues when leaving. We had a little of the first with our first visit and more of the latter with our second. Despite the rough first visit, the location was so great we decided it was worth the gamble to try again and it paid off. We did also park here one other trip to the area, Estacionamiento Multipisos de Hacienda. It was our last day and we wanted to try out a restaurant in this area. This parking garage was a little scary as it was in disrepair and seemed a bit sketchy in general, but it worked for what we needed and we got in and out as quickly as we could.
Beware turning around or pulling off the road here. We saw a tour van with a local guide get caught on the edge of the road and they had to call a tow truck. The road was very narrow with sharp curves limiting sightlines so turning around is tight. We had a massive SUV rental and we were able to do it so it's 100% possible to do so safely, just don't trust the shoulder of the road as turning space or you could end up like the tour van. Otherwise, if you really want to explore El Yunque National Park on your own, a car is absolutely necessary. There is so much to see, I was driving so I was taking in as much as I could while also telling my husband and kids to take pictures and videos because it was so beautiful. Highly, highly recommend getting to El Yunque National Park and exploring whether that be through a tour company or on your own. While I would love to go to Puerto Rico and not sit behind the wheel, I do think self exploration around El Yunque National Park is the way to go. There is just something about being in a group of strangers that kind of takes away from the wonder you have of such a wild area. My personal experience only though, if I go back to Puerto Rico and decide not to rent a car, I would totally take a guided tour here because I think it’s well worth the time and money investment.
There are many, many car rental options in Puerto Rico, but I’ve had a lot of success with Alamo. I have used them in North Carolina, California and Puerto Rico. If you’re flying into San Juan International Airport (SJU), once you grab your bags, you’ll walk across the street and see all the rental car companies. Super easy to find. We had to take the elevator up to the Alamo area and once there it went a little unexpectedly. When I rented in North Carolina I used “skip the line” and they really meant it there, you just walk to a car category you rented, get in and drive to the exit where they officially check you out. In San Juan though when I tried that they got a little frustrated with me. They didn’t make a big deal out of it, just rolled their eyes at me and explained why they needed me to wait for them before selecting a vehicle. Anyway, they told me which one I could take, it met our needs so I oriented myself to its controls and headed toward the exit. At the exit, they took note of any already existing scratches and dings and we were on our way. Despite the little differences, I would still very much recommend Alamo. Bonus points for them as a company: Alamo was the only rental car company I found that offered military discounts. I’m not military, but I appreciate those that serve so even if they were a little more expensive, I’d still choose them for this reason. It seems like each time I price out rental car options, Alamo has something like a coupon code that makes them the most affordable option. I have also looked into Turo several times but there was usually something that deterred me from them. For example, I’m looking at a trip to the Northwest US (Washington/Oregon) and all the vehicle options are sedans. Since there would likely only be four of us, it might work, but with luggage, ehhhhh, not so sure. When looking in California, the pick up location would have required me to uber to it, not a huge deal but when you factor in the extra cost and hassle, it just didn’t make sense. I am intrigued by that as an option, but it just hasn’t made sense to me thus far.
Puerto Rico driving rules are exactly like the continental United States. You drive on the right side of the road and the steering wheel is on the left side of the car (near the center line).
Okay, this one surprised me. Everything I read in advance indicated that we would be just fine not knowing Spanish visiting Puerto Rico, so I did not expect that all the road signs would be in Spanish only. We got by, but it certainly made some things tougher. Google Maps definitely saved my butt on this one. Also, some road signs are very familiar anyway like the shape and color of stop signs were the same as in the continental US. It also helped a ton that speed limit signs are still in miles per hour; however, not many actually follow them so whatevs.
Um, so, I kept my “Avoid Tolls" setting on Google Maps the entire time we were in Puerto Rico. We survived, but it’s probably best to just go through the tolls and stay on the more mainstream roads. If you’re renting a car, there will be options to prepay any tolls or to get a toll device that keeps track of them for you. I am such a cheapskate though and for some reason decided this was the penny I needed to pinch. Don’t follow my lead on this one, I definitely drove on some sketchy roads, LOL