The consensus says that despite your location in Puerto Rico, if you plan on remaining in that same general area, you do not necessarily need a rental. That’s not to say you’ll never have the urge to act on a whim and travel to other cities. Because of the intimate size of the country and the prevalence of taxis and public transportation and shuttle services offered by most hotels in Puerto Rico, many will opt to nix the idea of renting and maintaining a car over the course of their stay.
There are some benefits to renting a car, however, especially for those with families. The value is glaring; transporting a large party of people and, of course, the savings. Most of the major car rental companies service Puerto Rico, including Hertz, Avis, and Budget, and as parking is not much of an epidemic on the island, the reason for and against renting a car for your Puerto Rico vacation depends more or less on your tolerance level.
Are you, by chance, staying at one of the many beautiful hotels in Puerto Rico? Would you be interested in exploring beyond the hotel property, visiting the eclectic cocktail of beaches Puerto Rico has to offer?
The answer in this case is fairly cut-and-paste; renting a car will get you to any attraction on the island and is also going to allot some additional funding to your Puerto Rico vacation.
And the opposition to renting a car?
* The drivers. Puerto Rico is a destination dramatized for its timeless sunsets and erratic drivers. What you will find is that in some of the larger cities like San Juan, the driving is absolutely atrocious, eclipsing that of New York city or Boston. Once you escape the bustle of metropolitan Puerto Rico, the quality of driving rapidly increases.
* The traffic. Like any larger locale, the traffic in Puerto Rico’s busiest cities is suffocating during the morning, lunch, and early-evening.
Other than the state of driving in Puerto Rico, the occasional toll, and a bizarre law that allows those driving between midnight and five a.m. to drive through red lights, renting a car for your Puerto Rican vacation can cure cabin fever and alleviate some tight budgets for a longer stay.
