My husband and I will be renting a car for a day trip to drive Hwy 1 to Monterey from San Francisco.

I've read a smaller car is better to rent due to narrow lanes and tight parking. However, I can get a "premium" car, i.e. Nissan Maxima, for half of the cost of a compact car.

Will this size car be unreasonable for the trip I've planned? I will be parking overnight in our hotel parking garage (free parking) before returning the car the next morning.

What do you think?

Gina

The lanes aren't that narrow, and a Maxima isn't that big. It will not be any problem.

Driving where - San Francisco or Hwy 1???

In San Francisco, if we are NOT going to park anywhere where street parking is difficult (parking garages), we drive our mini-SUV. For areas where street parking is difficult (most everywhere) we drive our VW Bug that we purchased a few years ago for parking in SF.

Hwy 1 - mini-SUV.

Stu Dudley

It will be fine, Hwy 1 is a normal sort of road.

I live in San Francisco, and drive a normal-size 4-door sedan (not a VW bug or a MiniCooper, and not a SmartCar), and we drive, and park, all over the city.

Thank you for your feedback. I hated to pay double the money to rent a car, but posts really seemed to encourage renting a smaller car. We will have to park in our hotel parking garage overnight until we can return the car the next morning. Other than the parking garage, I didn't think parking would be a problem since we won't be in the city for the majority of the day.

Thanks again! Gina