I’m going to start by sharing a short story when this single piece of paper almost singlehandedly derailed our entire trip to Greece last summer.
We arrived on the island of Crete, jetlagged and drained from our previous week in Egypt.
The plan was to rent a one-way car that was already pre-arranged and drive around the island. Along our route, we would be stopping at a bunch of beautiful landmarks before departing to Santorini via the port on the east side of the island.
Picking up our Rental Car
Eager to hit the open road, we arrived at the rental car desks with our passports in hand ready to roll. Everything was going according to plan when the customer service attendant asked for our International Driving Permits. This resulted in one of those raised-eyebrow question mark plastered over my face reaction. She then exclaimed that “without an international driving permit you will not be able to rent a vehicle in Greece”.
COME ON MAN!
Lisa and I were devastated.
We had been looking forward to this trip for quite some time. We could not believe that we somehow overlooked Greece requiring International Driving Permits for car rentals. Later on, we learned that Greece’s laws on the international driving permit being required for foreign tourists had changed a few weeks prior to our arrival.
Credit Card perks
At the time of booking, an International Driving Permit was not required.
A benefit of using credit cards to book is that your money isn’t tied up in a situation like this. The rental agency basically said there’s nothing we can do and indicated there would be no refund.
Since we booked with our Credit Card, we opted to dispute this charge. We never actually received the service, and nowhere in the reservation did the agency indicate that we would need an International Driving Permit. They also did not alert us when the laws changed.
We eventually won that dispute. Slightly off the beaten path, we found a rental agency hat offered us a sketchy vehicle but we were able to make our way around Greece as planned.
Extra cautiously!
One Island Down
We, unfortunately, encountered more challenges when it came to renting an ATV on Santorini or a Scooter on Mykonos.
Both of those islands also required International Driving Permits and again we had to resort back to the beaten path.
In Santorini, we were in luck. We found one person in the town that charged us extra to rent without an International Driving Permit.
Even though it cost a little more money, it was absolutely worth it to have our own ATV while touring the island.
Unfortunately, things did not work out the same way on Mykonos.
NO ONE would even entertain the idea of renting us an ATV or car without an International Driving Permit.
We went to a ton of shops all over the island and the consistent answer was no. The companies were not willing to take the risk of being fined.
The only thing we were able to get was a beat down scooter. Now when I say beat down, this POS couldn’t even make it up a small hill. We had this scooter for maybe 5 hours tops before bringing it back for fear of our lives!
Conclusion
The moral of our Greek shenanigans is that for a mere $20 at AAA we could have purchased an International Driving Permit and had zero of those issues.
At the end of the day, we luckily were able to make it work out. Those stressful days often lead to adventure, personal growth, possibly an ulcer, and lots of laughing tears.
Although sometimes, a guy just wants to have a Basic Vacation.
Now that I’m a proud owner of my very own International Driving Permit that might just happen 😉
