The agent at the Hertz desk at ANC made it a point to warn me not to take the car into Mexico. Having just flown up from Chicago I was doubled over laughing for a good couple of minutes.

I asked if anyone had tried doing it and he said nobody had, although someone had taken one of their rentals to Florida recently. (That was completely kosher, as well as going into Canada, natch. I didn't ask about trying to take the car into Hawaii.)

I rented from a place in Atlanta once where the limitation was Georgia and bordering states. I was tempted to take the thing up to Nags Head, out to Memphis and down to Key West and coming back via Mobile but didn't have the time.

The thing about Tennessee confiscating rental cars from NC sounds fishy. Then again, Tennessee troopers used to have a reputation for doing some underhanded things.