CARIBBEAN CAR RENTAL | WEST INDIES CAR RENTAL
If you want to rent a car to explore an island nation, you are not short of choice or simplicity when it comes to Caribbean car rental.
Ask your hotel, visit a travel agent, or speak to the souvenir seller on the beach, someone knows someone renting a car (legally).
And before you can say 'one more rum punch please' you can be whizzing around in a beautiful little four-wheeled freedom machine to places no traveller has been, with utter convenience and affordability.
The convenience is grand. Affordability, however, is veiled under a weight of taxes, fees, licensing, and optional add-ons, as our West Indies car rental experience of June 2024 will attest.
Rule of thumb; double the advertised rental rate per day, at a minimum.
All rentals are promoted in US$ so if you think if you can rent a car in Jamaica for JM$35 (US$0.25), you're already on the wrong road.
Notably, before insurance or add-ons, you cannot drive on any island without buying a local driving licence, which range from US$5 in Barbados to US$25 in Dominica & St Kitts.
Thus, your "Jesaulenko, you beauty", unbelievable, US$35 per day is already US$40 in Barbados and a lot more in other nations, all before much-maligned taxes.
And thinking you may have a nice souvenir of your time driving into St Lucian volcanoes, your 'local licence' is simply a receipt for the cash paid, rather than an authoritative document worth keeping for posterity.
Running the 'no licence' gauntlet is not an option either as you won't be given keys to a car without one, so cough up. The same said for insurance.
It is rare that we would rent a car without full insurance, as the cost of protection is far cheaper than paying thousands of dollars for an altercation that was not our fault.
Being familiar with the roads and locale you are travelling is fair reason for not taking added insurance, but it's not worth being cleaned up by an unlicenced, drunk, West Indian space cadet.
Damage to the car is one thing, irreparable damage to yourself is something else.
Pay the insurance, along with that for tyres!
When asked, take 'tyre insurance'. West Indian road quality is deplorable, especially in Antigua and St Maarten. St Kitts' roads are amazing, but still protect the tyres for $5 per day.
Impossible to see at night, and hard to navigate at any time, pot holes and damaged tarmac, along with unmarked speed humps and speed dumps, can wreck wheels & tyres in flash, along with what little suspension is left in your 'affordable' run around with 350,000km on the clock (as had my Dominica rental!).
HOT TIP: Drive slowly
We escaped without claiming on tyre insurance, but would not hit a West Indian road without it, and suggest you don't either.
So, take your 'cheap' West Indies car rental of US$35+ per day, add a local licence, comprehensive insurance, tyre insurance, lost key insurance, road side assistance, service fees, and GST/VAT/ST, and you will look for others to split the cost blowout of adventuring to Grenadian waterfalls, Barbadian golf courses, or the Jamaican Blue Mountains, all before you refuel!
If you are joining our Australian Cricket Tour to the West Indies 2025, and wish to share Caribbean car rental costs, we'll connect you to others in the group to ride shotgun or backseat drive.