Do I Need A Rental Car?
The short answer is: yes, you definitely need a rental car when you are visiting Kauai. Public transportation is very limited across the island and ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft are only reliable around the Lihue airport. You should not expect to have any kind of regular service by Uber or Lyft while in the Koloa/Poipu area. In my personal experience, scheduling these services is less-than-ideal as cabs can still run quite late. Kauai’s south shore has a great deal to offer visitors, but trips to the grocery store or nearby restaurants for dinner almost always require a car. Save yourself the headache and grab a rental car!
Rental Car Recommendations
There is no secret cache of cheap rental cars on Kauai! My strong recommendation is to look at Kayak.com and compare rental car prices there. All of the major car rental companies list through Kayak and service the Lihue Airport. Sixt is the newest rental car company on island, though be aware that their location is not at the airport and requires a short shuttle ride to reach. If you are booking through Sixt, make sure to budget extra time to catch the shuttle. Turo is another option for guests, although read on to the next section to find out my thoughts on this service.
There is one service that I have found to be consistently cheaper than every other offering on Kauai: EconomyBookings.com. They operate out of Europe but – having myself personally rented a few cars from them myself – I have never had any issue with them whatsoever. They work directly with the name brand rental car companies at the Lihue Airport. By my lights, this is exactly like reserving through a regular company – just significantly cheaper.
Why Turo On Kauai Is Awful (With One Caveat)
Turo arose as a sort of Airbnb for cars, allowing users to rent cars from individuals rather than through traditional rental car companies. Though there’s one exception, I do not recommend Turo to any Kauai guests. There are a few reasons why:
- The main reason is that all Turo cars were moved far off-site to the Kukui Grove Mall. To get to your Turo rental, you need to board the shuttle at the airport and take a 15-minute (or more) shuttle ride to the mall. The shuttle only runs every 30 minutes, so you’ll need to book out at least an extra hour on top of your busy arrival and departure days to drop off your rental car. Though the lines can be long inside the traditional rental car company check-in kiosks, they are nowhere near this bad. Furthermore, since there is only one shuttle, space inside can fill up quickly and you’ll need to wait another 30-to-40 minutes just to get into the next shuttle. For me, this is an absolute non-starter.
- The second reason that I do not recommend Turo is that there have been a plethora of complaints regarding onerous demands of renters. It is not uncommon to find that individuals renting their cars out will ask for drivers to take their car through the car wash and vacuum the inside. Because Turo does not have a cleaning service like other competitors, that responsibility is pushed onto the driver. The last thing I want to do on my departure day is have to detail someone else’s car!
- Almost every single rental car on Turo has restrictions on where it can go, namely: Polihale Beach. Polihale Beach, if you don’t know, is a beach on the west side of the island that has a long drive out on a bumpy access road before you hit the beach. I have seen other location-based restrictions in the copy of Turo listings — and these are just not things you ever find when renting through a traditional company. Though likely impossible to enforce in practice, I find no good reason to gamble on this at all.
Lastly, I also find Turo to be more expensive than the name brand companies – and much more so than EconomyBookings.com. For all of these reasons, I strongly advise against using Turo for your rental car while on Kauai.
There is one exception to this. Turo does have a wider selection of cars than traditional rental car companies. If you are absolutely determined to grab one particular (likely luxury) car during your time here and suffer through the aforementioned advisories, then Turo would be a decent option for you. But with Sixt moving in and offering more luxury cars, I would struggle to think that Turo is worth the price of admission for nearly any car.
