We were in Puerto Rico for six nights and rented three Jeeps during those six nights!
The Jeep Rentals
We used Costo Travel to rent a white Jeep from Alamo at San Juan's Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport (SJU). The Alamo vehicle class for this was "Fullsize Specialty" and its description was "JEEP WRANGLER UNLIMITED or similar".
The car rental facility at San Juan Airport is in a parking garage directly across from the main terminals and is a quick and easy walk after picking up luggage.
We went to the Puerto Rico "Spanish Virgin Islands" of Culebra and Vieques and needed transportation on both of those islands. The car rental companies on the main Puerto Rico island generally do not allow their vehicles to be taken to either of these islands and it is difficult to do so even when allowed.
We rented a yellow Jeep from Jerry's Jeep Rental on Culebra.
We were able to reserve the Jeep online and in advance and it was easy to pick up because Jerry's Jeep Rental is located directly across from the small Culebra airport's (Benjamín Rivera Noriega Airport) parking lot and street.
Carlos Jeep Rental appears to be the other significant source of rental Jeeps on Culebra. They have a desk at the Culebra airport and their main facility is down the street.
There are numerous organizations that rent vehicles on Vieques, but we had a difficult time finding a Jeep available for rent. Golf carts and scooters were available, but we weren't sure about renting them overnight and a Jeep was preferable for our party of five anyway. Fortunately, the owner of the VRBO apartments we rented on Vieques (Manuel Carrillo) provided a Jeep Liberty that was available for rent to those who rented one of the VRBO units (we rented both). We were able to pick up that Jeep across the street from the apartments we rented.
We left the white Jeep rented from Alamo in the parking lot of the Ceiba airport (José Aponte de la Torre Airport) while on Culebra and Vieques.
Fueling Vehicles in Puerto Rico
Gas stations are relatively plentiful in much of Puerto Rico, but are far more scarce on the islands of Culebra and Vieques, so extra time should be allotted to refilling vehicles on those smaller islands.
Every gas station we visited in Puerto Rico required us to go into the gas station first to provide a credit card for payment in advance. In most cases, we could opt to either do a "fill up" (in which case the gas station employee would hold onto the credit card until the tank was filled and then charged the card for the proper amount) or opt to have the card charged a predetermined amount and the pump would stop pumping when we reached that amount.
Miles, Kilometers, and Liters
Most of the speed limit signs we saw in Puerto Rico were expressed in miles and the vehicles showed miles as well. However, signs that indicated distances tended to show the distances in kilometers. Gas prices tended to be advertised and charged on a per liter basis.
Road Conditions and Driving
The roads in Puerto Rico that we drove on were generally in good condition, though we were happy to have the Jeeps when taking some bumpy dirt roads to Playa La Chiva on Vieques and to the Cabo Rojo Lighthouse. In the larger cities (San Juan and Ponce), traffic congestion was an issue and paying careful attention to one-way roads was also necessary. We also encounted a vehicle going the wrong-way down a one-way street in the small main town on Culebra. Parking in that small downtown in Culebra was also relatively scarce.
We encountered a few especially aggressive drivers and a few particularly slow drivers in Puerto Rico, but in general the drivers we encountered were far more apt to adhere to stop signs and stop lights than drivers we saw in Santo Domingo in the neighboring Dominican Republic. Perhaps the biggest issue related to driving that we ran into frequently was people parking their cars in the middle of a lane or on a sidewalk with just enough hanging over into the lane to make cars driving in that lane need to move a bit into the next lane. We saw this quite a bit in the cities and in the rural towns.
Perhaps the most tense moments while driving in Puerto Rico occurred when navigating narrow and curvy roads amidst lush jungle foilage. There was always the possibility of a vehicle coming the other direction and cutting a sharp corner too close and you could not see oncoming traffic due to the thick (but very beautiful) foilage. Fortunately, drivers seemed to do well at keeping to their side and being wary when going around these blind curves. Some drivers even honked to let oncoming traffic know they were there. The narrow and curving roads through the jungle foilage is most pronounced in the middle of the main island in the mountainous regions. It was particularly memorable on a stretch of the road between Ponce and Cueva Ventana.
One particular tense moment of driving was when driving the Jeep through the short narrow tunnels to enter and leave the Old San Juan Cemetery (Santa María Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery) area.
It helps for drivers from the United States (and most nations) that driving in Puerto Rico is done on the right side of the road, which is what most of us are used to.
Tolls
There are several tollways in Puerto Rico and in many cases using them saves considerable time. Because we rented the main white Jeep from Alamo, we used their Toll Pass Program (at the time of this writing, it is: "$3.95 per usage day, not to exceed $19.75 per rental period. There is no TollPass Convenience Charge on rental days that you don't use a toll road."). It was nice to not have to stop and make payments and in a few cases it saved us from waiting in a line of several cars.
Car Rental Recommended for Puerto Rico
Most articles and blog posts I read about traveling to Puerto Rico recommended renting a vehicle if leaving San Juan. We are glad we did as renting vehicles on mainland Puerto Rico, Culebra, and Vieques allowed us to more efficiently see the parts of those respective islands we most wanted to see.
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