We are thinking of pick up a car at Hakata station to drive through the countryside where trains are not accessible, and returning it to the same place. Does anyone have any experience to share on driving out of and back into Fukuoka? We've been to Japan twice before, but have never driven. Thanks!

I rented a car in Kumamoto, and drove into the "countryside." Do you mean around Aso-san? If so, it was fine. The drivers are polite, and the roads were in great shape. I wish I had travelled with another person to help navigate, as it is always safer.

I found it challenging driving on the left, and also, the signage is not the international standards. For example, a stop sign as we know it looked completely different, so I would suggest studying the signs online in advance.

And you are correct, it is almost impossible to get around those areas without a car. There are buses, but they are very infrequent. I rented from Hertz, and my son, who speaks Japanese, called and got me a better rate than I could online. As a further point, your credit card car insurance does not apply in Japan, so you will have to add collision to your rental.

Russ, I JUST returned late Monday from 3 weeks in Japan, mostly Kyushu, including 10days of driving. We rented a car at FUK and then drove a loop and returned the car in Nagasaki airport area. I rented from Budget through Toocoo

First, I would not rent from Budget again, quite unhappy with the car because it had no backup camera and also the location of the outlets. So that’s the first thing I would look for, be sure there is a late model car with backup camera because everyone in Japan backs into th parking spots and if there is no backup camera, it’s much more difficult. The major moments of tension involved backing into parking spots.

Second, on Budget, they had no one at the counter in FUK and it took almost an hour to get to their outlet outside the airport. If you are planning to rent from an outlet in Fukuoka, then you have quite a few choices. I saw many Times and Nissan outlets around everywhere, next time I would investigate those companies. Driving in the city should not present a problem.

Third, the GPS in the car was almost useless. Even the staff at our hotels had difficulty programming it. We relied 95% on Google maps and our pocket WiFi.

Fourth, an ETC card is a must.

Fifth, Google Translate is a must. For example, oncewe had a problem at a toll both, the attendant started speaking very fast, hadn’t a clue what we did wrong. I had him speak into the microphone function and we figured out what the problem was. Then smiles all around.

Generally, we drove up and down narrow mountain roads, on the left with a right hand drive car.but there is very little traffic and everyone drives slowly. The major highway signs have English, there were only a few times when the signage was a big problem but google maps was helpful in those cases. We made some wrong turns but quickly corrected. I think the major issue will be your comfort level with right hand drive on the left side.

Very happy if if you want to PM me and talk offline about more details. Have always appreciated your TR, would like to return the favor if possible.

We rented a car in Kumamoto and drove around various places in northern half of Kyushu, and returned it to a rental place in central Fukuoka, no trouble at all.

Thank you all for the great advice. I have no problem with driving on the left, and if the city center traffic is not insane (think Paris, Rome, Milan...all in which I have driven) then I’ll be fine ;-).

No, nothing like that. We drove into Kyoto centre as well and even that was easy peasy compared to the European cities you mention. Fukuoka was a cake walk!
We found Japanese road drivers polite, and prone to following all the rules of speed, road-position etc.

We rented in Kumamoto and drove to Kurokawa Onsen and surrounding areas. The drivers are incredibly polite so even if you're too going slow, they won't honk at you.. Just make sure your car has an English speaking GPS. Google translate was also invaluable as we ran into some roadblocks and the signs were only in Japanese!