The best way to see Mexico, especially Yucatan is by renting a car. Your rental vehicle gives you the freedom to explore the offbeat places at your own pace without getting rushed. Without a car, you will be limited to overpriced, basic package tours with hordes of people.
Renting a car is quite easy in Mexico however, it is a bit tricky. We had to do a lot of research before booking our car in Mexico and here's what we got out of it. There a few online portals like Orbitz.com, Rentalcars.com who would offer a wide variety of car rentals but you have to be very careful while booking and must read the fine print. We found it better and more reliable to book directly through known companies like Hertz, Enterprise and Avis and I will tell you why. We booked our car through Enterprise which was no hassle. Here are the catches in renting-
1. Insurance- When booking through online agents like RentalCars.com or Orbitz.com, you may find larger vehicles for a very tempting price(as low as $5/day) but make sure to read the fine print because the first thing they will tell you at the time of pick up is that you need to have a local Mexican insurance and you will be forced into buying it by paying a hefty sum of money.
The catch is that technically all rental cars come with legally required Third Party Liability(TPL) coverage but when booking through online portals(say Orbitz.com) while booking it says the price includes TPL but once you do the booking your booking statement does not anywhere reflect that TPL is included in which case you would be forced to buy it for a huge price once you arrive at their counter in Cancun. Make sure your booking clearly reflects that it includes the Third Party Liability Coverage. Also, the TPL coverage is generally pretty minimal on online portals whereas we found it quite good when booking directly through Enterprise.
Another insurance you need to have is the Collision Damage Waiver(CDW) which was covered for us by our Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card. So, make sure before purchasing a Collision Damage Waiver(around $10-$12/day) insurance if your credit card company covers this for you. An important thing to remember before leaving your country is to get a letter from your credit card company which explicitly states all the insurance benefits you have worldwide. Sometimes the rental companies would force you into buying the local insurance unless you show them the letter.
2. Car and Car Type are not guaranteed- Yes, that's absolutely true and may be annoying sometimes but that's how it is in Mexico. Whether you book a Full-Size car or an intermediate car through an online agent or any other major player like Hertz or Enterprise and choose to pay when you pick up the car, you might end up getting a lower class car. I don't know why but most of them would not even give you the option to pay before you pick up the car and hence the uncertainty is more. Mostly this is the problem in the high season and unfortunately, this happened with us too and we ended up with a compact car.
When we reached at the Cancun airport and called up Enterprise to pick us up, we were informed that an intermediate car was not available due to high rush and the only car available was a compact. We were quite disappointed but since it was already late and we had no other option we decided to go ahead with the small car. The manager however, was really nice and offered his help in coordinating with other car rental companies in case we would like to go with other companies. He also gave us an additional discount on the compact car price and free exchange to an intermediate car in 2 days but we decided to drive the same car for the full length of our stay.
Pro Tip??- Always click pictures of your rental car when you pick up the car especially the rim, the sides and visible dents. This way you will have proof upon your return that you didn't cause any damage to the car during your travel in Mexico if need be .
Cost of the rental car-
Our rental car cost us 290$ for 10 days and we drove 1600 km around Quintana Roo and Yucatan and spent about 100$ in petrol.
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