BootsnAll Travel Community

Hey guys!

Me and my girlfriend are thinking about making a road trip around the States in a couple of months.

Our idea is to buy a car in the West Coast and drive to the East coast, something like SF - NY. Then, selling the car there.

Our questions:

Is easy to buy a car there?

How would work the insurance issue? Is one needed? (we are from the EU - Spain - )

As EU citizens we have the right for being 90 days on the states without visa. But if we want to stay more, is it possible an extension?

Buying a car is easy. Insuring it is another matter. Talk to YOUR insurance company and see what they recommend.

I don't know anything about USA visa extensions, but if it is our governent in action, then the procedure is undoubtedly unnecessarily difficult.

I see...

We are right now in Japan and its difficult finding information here, but we will do our best

About the visas, maybe can work going to Mexico and come back some days later?

I don't know what the legal issues involved in insuring a car here would be, but perhaps you sould join or contact either the Japan Auto Federation or the American Automobile Association.

The only other advice I can offer is that you might make out better financially buying a car in Arizona than California. The lack of rain means that used cars are in much better condition -- I've known people to make a good deal of money buying classic cars in Phoenix or Tucson and selling them in New York. I don't know what the increase in gas prices has done to people's interest in those old gas guzzlers, though.

Hey Haci, thanks for your help.

We will think about that option, it can be good for us, but if we arrive to California, that will change some things

Thanks again!

By the way, do you know any rental agencie good for this plan? Prices for small budgets and possibility of taking the car in SF and leaving it in NY for a small amount of money?

Our idea is to buy and sell, but we dont mind renting if we find any really cheap option

Renting for an extended period is going to be more expensive than buying/then selling.

If you're going to just be a few weeks on the road trip though, renting might be a good options...any longer than a month or so, not so much.

You will need an address in the states - both for registering the car and for insurance. If you have a friend, in the states you can use theirs - or you can get one with the UPS store.

Insurance....without a U.S. drivers license might be tough....the question gets asked enough that I should probably research it and write an article...in fact, I think I'll do that.

Okey, so if you do that article please let us read it!

We really would like to have our american adventure, but it is very difficult to find information, I guess road trip is something just for americans, but we will keep searching

I'm going to write the article...no doubt. It will take some time though.

Buying a car is no problem.

registering it (buying number plates) is not much more of a hassle.

Insuring it (actually, insuring yourself) is another matter entirely. Maybe you can buy insurance without a U.S. drivers license - I don't know - maybe your insurance from wherever you're from will suffice. Again I don't know. Here's what I do know:

The path of least resistance to buying automobile liability insurance in the U.S. is to have both of these:

A) an address in the U.S. - use a friend's or...I will detail other options in the article that I write (see signature for website and use my RSS feed to get updates)


B) a U.S. drivers license

from the state of California's Department of Motor Vehicles "If you are a visitor in California over 18 [years of age] and have a valid driver license from your home state or country, you may drive in this state without getting a California driver license as long as your home state license remains valid." so that covers DRIVING ..but not necessarily insurance. As far as a drivers license is concerned...if California recognizes your home country's driver license as valid...then most other states will, though law enforcement tends to be exceptionally incompetent in the U.S. (I will offer no apology here...regardless of how competent you are at law enforcement)...so just beware - keep it on the straight and narrow though and you should have no problems with law enforcement.

o.k...just called a U.S. insurance salesman...he was a complete dolt, but the consensus view is that a U.S. drivers license will be required to buy a U.S. insurance policy.....so...you're a bit stuffed because the state of California (and you can assume most other states) require a Social Security Number (SSN - the U.S. way of tracking taxpayers) to apply for a drivers license. However, buried within their bureaucracy I found this directly relating to drivers license: " Exception to the SSN requirement:

If you are legally present in the US, but ineligible for an SSN, you are exempt from SSN requirements. However, you must still provide an acceptable birth date/legal presence document for any DL/ID card application OR provide a valid SSN."

so...my assumption would be that with a valid passport & visitor's permit (and address) that you would be able to obtain a California drivers license and then the requisite insurance.

I am currently at the South Pole and my ability to actually call California DMV to verify is limited to satellite uptime which doesn't fall within their business hours. I would encourage you to ring them yourself to get an answer...but I am only seeing 800 (toll free) numbers and don't know if you can even ring these from outside the U.S. You can have a look at their website at www.dmv.ca.gov or since you are in Spain...the Spanish (Mexican) language version at es.dmv.ca.gov to see if you can find a contact number which you can call from outside the U.S....the key to legally driving in the U.S. is having adequate liability insurance and this seems to hinge on having a valid U.S. drivers license. I would happily check with other insurance providers - but I suspect that the same rules will apply across the board - though insurers tend to be an unscrupulous lot so I would think that it is possible to buy insurance without having a drivers license.

I would encourage you to not get too frustrated. The U.S. is a great place to travel - especially now for Europeans considering the exchange rate. Traveling by automobile is a great way to see it as we tend to ship our sick and old and addicted by bus, making bus travel much less attractive than it might be in other parts of the world.

Just for the fun of it, I filled out for a quote for renting a budget car at SFO and dropping it off two months later at JFK in NY- The quote came back at $20,000 + -probably not an option

Found this site with info on getting insuranceForeign visitor insurance
However, in order to register a vehicle you do have to have a residence address.

Hey guys, thanks for your effort!

It seems pretty difficult, but we are going to do as much as possible for making that trip. And renting seems not an option.

Also we have got the problem that we are on the road right now, so it is also difficult for us finding Internet, searching, etc.

We will do our best!

Hey, and what about this drive away thing? Do you know it?

txolo -

GEICO will sell an insurance policy to someone who is licensed outside of the U.S. The biggest challenge will be calling them from outside the U.S. but you should be able to find an agent in California with a CA phone # (not toll-free) that you can dial - or call using skype or whatever VOIP.

Liability insurance is required by law in most of the U.S. and you will need this at a minimum, limits of liability vary...but buying the minimum will at least get you by with the law.

Comprehensive is not a requirement (unless you finance the car) - but is handy to have in the case of windscreen breakage or theft

Collision - well, covers the car in a collision and isn't a requirement if the car isn't financed.

So that's got you pretty much covered. It's definitely doable. I'd figure the process will take 3 days to one week, so budget at least that much time to handle everything...more if you're a picky buyer.

I still intend on detailing as much of the process as I can in an article...stay tuned!

quote:

llenge will be calling them from outside the U.S. but you should be able to find an agent in California with a CA phone # (not toll-free) that you can dial - or call using skype or whatever VOIP.

Hi Moloch!

That sounds very interesting. We´ve got Skype, so maybe we can phone them with that.

Thanks for your help!

Hey

We are sending some emails to Geico, it seems that they can make it, now we just want to know the price of the insurance, we don´t know how much can it be and we would need this info just to calculate our budget etc

Anyway, that seems a good company to do the thing

We'll inform you with the news

Just a warning-our gas prices are sky rocketing- in California we are paying $4.59/gal at the cheap places- just make sure that whatever vehicle you do buy gets decent mileage or you may find a problem with reselling- lots of people selling their cars to buy hybrids.

why not just rent a car and return it to the airport?

Because renting a car for 90 days costs 3000 $

I live in Phoenix, AZ and there are PLENTY of used cars selling for about $3,000 to $6,000. I even can see some small used RV selling for $5,000 if you want to save money on motel.

I think maybe RV is harder to sell but at least, you saved a lot for not sleeping in motel or hostel. Yes, RV is gas guzzler, but its another option you can think of.

IF you come to Phoenix to buy car, there are plenty Used Car Sales lot along Van Buren between 51 ave and 40st.