West coast roadtrip planning

I don't know what you see on Hertz.com from the Czech republic, but they do offer what they call the Green Traveler Collection.

And welcome! The western US is a great place for a road trip - Ocean, Mountains, Desert and so much more.

 

I always rent thru Hertz bc their AAA deals usually offer the lowest rates. Hybrid rentals are usually a lot higher than non-hybrids. Hertz also don't have many hybrids or Prii in stock, that's probably why they don't advertise their Green Traveler line much. If you can't reserve a Prius ahead of time, then perhaps reserve a different car and when it gets close to the rental day, call in and ask if they're expecting a Prius in any time soon. Usually on the pick up date, if they have one, they'll let u upgrade at a much lower cost than if u just reserved it in the first place.

 

Have a great trip and I hope you enjoy the US as much as I enjoyed the Czech Republic.

 

PaJa: If your travel plans are flexible, there are plenty of people on this site, having residence understanding, that could offer recommendations for routes and sites to consider during your 4 state adventure. E.G.; If your plans include San Francisco, consider staying in a low cost hotel in Pleasant Hill/Concord/East Bay and take BART (metro/train) and other public transportation into and throughout the city. Parking is limited and expensive in SF and few people would describe driving in the city as fun.

 

We rented ours from a Toyota dealership, but we are in the Midwest. Not sure if they do that every where

 

My local dealer rents out the Prius. How are their rates and policies? Comparable to Hertz/Avis/enterprise/etc?

 

Yeah, parking in much of San Francisco (at least where hotels are) is awful and likely expensive. An example is this hotel near Moscone Centre (About the Hotel | San Francisco Luxury Hotel in San Francisco, California | InterContinental Hotels & Resorts). Parking is "Valet parking only, with in & out privileges. $60 per 24-hours, inclusive of tax."

Yeah, driving in SF is not fun.

I live in San Jose. If you stay towards the South Bay (say, around Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and San Jose (not downtown)), you should be able to find reasonably priced motels/hotels where parking is free. But, BART doesn't go that far south (BART - Station List). There is Caltrain (System Map) and the Mailbrae station serves both BART and Caltrain.

On the west side of the Bay, for BART, some stations have parking for minimal fee. Sometimes, if I need to go to SF for an event (e.g. an auto show at Moscone Center, Star Trek convention at a hotel) and I know I'll be there for a long time and parking will be pricey, I drive to Daly City BART, park there and take BART. Daly City is closest station to SF that actually has parking.

The BART ticket roundtrip, BART parking fee all come out to less than me paying by the hour to park near Moscone.

Public transportation in the Bay Area is quite poor, esp. in San Jose although the buses in SF seem to run very frequently w/lots of choices of routes compared to awful Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority in San Jose. (E.g. Sometimes in SF, if you want to go somewhere, if you miss one bus, it seems you can catch another within 3-15 mins. In San Jose, where I live, there's a single bus route that comes once an hour, stops running by around 7 pm and doesn't run on weekends.)

Be careful about where you stay in the East Bay (I can't speak to that area too well other than Fremont and Milpitas). For example, some parts of Oakland are very bad (I don't go there unless I have some reason to). Richmond is notorious for being a sketchy city. I hear the BART station around the Coliseum is pretty sketchy.

On the local news (mainly KTVU channel 2), we frequently hear of shooting and homicides in Oakland and Richmond (examples: Oakland homicide victim identified; Gunman still at large | www.ktvu.com Community mourns slaying of young man at Richmond vigil | www.ktvu.com).

San Jose's had a recent uptick in homicides for some reason (San Jose Police ID Weekend Homicide Victim | NBC Bay Area says 11th this year so far) but Richmond and Oakland's rates per given population are much worse.

See these for populations:
San Jose (city) QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau (~11 homicides so far for 967K people)
Oakland (city) QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau (~19 homicides so far for 395K people)
Richmond (city) QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau (~18 homicides so far for 105K people)

 

Here's the link to our local Toyota dealership and their rental rates. Hope it's helpful.

Kings Toyota Scion | New Toyota dealership in Cincinnati, OH 45249