Driving in the US

[battymum]

Can anyone tell me if I need to get an international drivers licence if we plan on driving in the USA. How would I go about getting such a thing?

 

[HappyFingers]

you dont need one if your stay is less than 12 months

your Aussie licence is all you need

i looked it up a while ago

 

[battymum]

thanks - one more thing I can tick off the list!

 

[Oz-kateer]

I can second that - have rented cars lots of times in the US using a NSW licence, no problems.

 

[zanzibar138]

Our travel agent told us we needed to get one. Having said that, he also told us that we needed to pay an extra fee to get into Disneyland at night to see the fireworks etc... So I don't know that I believe him.

If you are going to get one, you can get them through the RAC shops in your state, or I think you can send away for one as well. I think they were about $30 each.

 

[Sugarglider]

NRMA shops in sydney do international drivers licenses.
I've rented cars in the US about 6 times now and never needed it.

 

[PrincessInOz]

We've used our Aussie license both East and West Coast USA without any issue. We've never bothered with an International License.

We've even been pulled over once by the CHiPs in NorCal and they looked at our Australian license and were not fussed by the lack of IL or that it was not a US license.

 

[kylieh]

I was concerned too for our last trip. We rented with Hertz and wasn't asked for an international licence at all. Depends on who you rent with as well, if you licence is in a language other than English, obviously it won't be, then you'll need it.

It might be worth getting your GPS here if you haven't already that takes/can load the US maps. A lot cheaper normally than renting depending on the length of the stay.

 

[Oz-kateer]

Say YES to GPS! They get my vote.

Trip last year was the first time I used one in the USA and it was fantastic. No faffing about with maps and so on. Just plug in and off you go.

 

[zanzibar138]

BF has already downloaded maps for the US on his GPS. We probably could get away with renting one for the hire car since it's only a couple of days, but we figured it would be useful for the rest of our trip too

 

[ViOnline]

Your travel agent probably never been in US
Nobody asked about international drivers license ever and I bet most of car rental agents in US never heard about such licenses at all

Our travel agent told us we needed to get one. Having said that, he also told us that we needed to pay an extra fee to get into Disneyland at night to see the fireworks etc... So I don't know that I believe him.

If you are going to get one, you can get them through the RAC shops in your state, or I think you can send away for one as well. I think they were about $30 each.

 

[WAMUMOF4]

We rented without one as well and had no problems.
If your still concerned look on the car hire web site under international driving requirements thats what i looked at last year I was having nightmares over getting there and finding out we couldn't hire a car for our driving holiday because we wanted to save $30 but it was all good

 

[zanzibar138]

I ended up getting one, just because I was sure that I would be the one person who ever got asked for one... I was very organised and had all our important documents in a folder (theme park tickets, airline tickets, hotel confirmations, copies of passports etc), which I promptly left at the Peacock Suites!

So to cut a long story short, we didn't have an international drivers licence with us and it wasn't a problem.

PS I don't think I will ever get my folder back. We got the Peacock Suites to send it to San Francisco - it got there the day we left! Then we got them to forward to the Grand Canyon, and it wasn't there yet when we left either!

 

[marvel]

International license is just $30 you won't see again. Have rented cars in the US 5 times across the past 4 years and was never ever asked for anything other than your regular license.