Thanks for putting this together! Very helpful!

Map Codes are better than phone numbers because not all places have phone numbers ... like that little scenic water fall you want to visit, or a particular entrance (among many) to a national park. Or a scenic place has a phone number, but it's actually the local chamber of commerce office located miles away.

Google Maps - one time it led me to a closed Uniqlo when I was looking for one in Takayama. Phone number of the current location from the internet didn't work with the in-car GPS - as the lookup database is obsolete the day it leaves the factory.

The best I have found since, is Japanese GPS app. I use Mapfan. Has English voice prompt, but otherwise Japanese interface. It accepts phone and map code input, and has accurate up-to-date map data telephone lookup.

Any thoughts on how strict the rental companies are with their pick-up times before they cancel a reservation? I'm attempting to make car reservations a couple of months ahead of time and at this point I can make a decent estimate of the pickup times, but it's a bit of a challenge to pinpoint the exact time to the nearest half hour. These are not pre-paid reservations, and it seems like in the US the companies I deal with will typically hold your car an hour before cancellation. If I'm running late I could ask my hotel or ryokan to give them a call and ask for an extension, but it would be great to know if others have had any first-hand knowledge. Thanks in advance!

I don't have firsthand knowledge, but I've sort of assumed it's similar to US. That is... if I'm going to be more than 30-60min late, I call the rental car agency and give them a heads-up. Or if my flight's delayed but I'm picking up at an airport location and the car booking has my flight info, then I don't worry too much. The only difference btwn the two countries may be that in Jpn they may try to hold you accountable for cancellation penalty in case a no-show or late arrival results in cancellation, whereas in US you're generally not going to be charged anything as long as it was a non-prepaid / no-deposit booking (at least that's been the case with Hertz and National).

I just googled to look up a few rental agencies' policies on this. Nippon, Orix and Times all say being >60min may result in cancellation unless you call.
https://rental.timescar.jp/faq/reservation/179.html
https://www.nipponrentacar.co.jp/faq/faq2.htm#03
https://car.orix.co.jp/userguide/faq_departure.html

Thanks evergrn! I did notice that cancellation penalty -- I'm not expecting any issues but at this point I'll plan to call if I'm running late.

I think as long as you call, and you pick the car up before the branch closes for the day, you should be fine.

I recently showed up 5 hours late to a Times Car Rental reservation, and they didn't seem to care too much. I still called ahead though.

Decline CDW?
 

Hi,
I'm looking at a Budget rental via Holiday Cars and it doesn't give an option to decline CDW. Is this normal for Japan? Similar to New Zealand where the CDW is mandatory with a rental?
Thanks.

Cheers. That helps a great deal.

If you book a rate where CDW is included, you can still take advantage of credit card coverage. Even if it's booked through a broker. Please call the CC insurance company to inquire re. what steps you need to take.

All Japanese rental companies I have used offer CDW as optional. Some discount rates many include CDW, as mentioned.

Hi,

Thinking of renting a car on Okinawa. Any specific do and don'ts (as the speed limit is low etc I hope I don't have a hard time driving on the wrong side of the road).

I rented from Times. They were good. I wanted to ease into things by not renting the car immediately upon arrival, but rather waiting a couple days before picking up the car. I rented from a location near the airport so that I could drop off my car and catch their shuttle bus to the airport on return. I chose a hotel close to the monorail (so I could hop on the monorail at the airport upon arrival and go straight to the hotel), spent the first day in Naha, then took taxi from the hotel to Times for the pick-up. Then had the car for the remaining days of our stay on the island during which we went everywhere else.

Driving in Okinawa is really not much different than driving most elsewhere in Jpn. Learning to drive on the wrong side is no easier/harder there than Kyushu or Hokkaido (of course it's not crazy like Tokyo or Osaka). I would certainly do it again. Driving in Naha was a bit hairy, but fairly easy elsewhere. One thing to note is that, although the island appears small, it takes a long time to go a relatively short distance. It took a good hour (possibly more) to go from the airport to Chatan. The only fast way to go up and down the island is via the expressway. I heard that gets crowded in the afternoon, though, so keep that in mind. If you want to take the scenic route along the coast from Chatan up past Nago, you're talking a couple hours.

Anyways, in Okinawa, I think you pretty much have no choice but to rent a car... unless you want to do bus tours or just hang out in Naha.

Most rental chain locations downtown offer free pick up at your hotel. There is no drop charge for one-way rental between airport and downtown Naha.

Also taxi at Okinawa is a lot cheaper than the mainland.

Rakuten Car rental is giving me 403 forbidden when I attempt to select a car rental region browsing from the US
Ex: Yamaguchi https://cars.travel.rakuten.co.jp/ca..._map_yamaguchi

It does seem to work if I use a VPN with Japan region. It looks like Rakuten's Content Delivery Network treats non-JP a bit differently these days as it worked a few weeks ago without VPN.