Driving in Foreign Places
Enjoy Yourself On Those Foreign Roads

You need to familiarize yourself with international road signs. Most are pictographs, and that's a good thing, because if you were driving in Greece, they'd all be Greek to you otherwise. OK... that was a bad pun, but you get what I'm saying. Do a little research for driving in foreign places.

Review what those signs mean. Most guidebooks and maps list them, but you don't want to be looking in the book to find that the white horizontal slash on a red sign means "Do Not Enter" just as you have driven down the street!

What are the driving customs? What are the signals to pass or not pass? Watch what the local drivers are doing and take hints from them when you're driving in foreign places. Back to Greece, when the truck drivers were telling us it was safe to pass, they stuck their left arm out.... now in the U.S., that's the old arm signal for turning left. It took us a couple of days to figure out that they weren't turning, just waving us around.

You may be driving on a different side of the road than you're used to. Drivers on the right may have a slight edge, but throughout the world it's pretty evenly split for who drives on the left and who drives on the right. If you're driving on the "wrong" side of the road for you, you'll need to pay even more attention.

Remember that speed limits and distances will be measured differently. Around the world, most distances are metric, as are speed limits. The U.S. persists in using miles. The average speed limit on U.S. freeways is 65 mph (miles per hour).... that translates to 105 km/h. Speed limits are posted, so that's easy. For distances, use roughly 0.6 mile per kilometer.... or 1.6 kilometer per mile.

Toll roads and road fees are a whole category unto themselves.

Many outback roads in Australia are only one lane wide. If you meet oncoming traffic, you're expected to drive with one wheel on the road and one off road. If you can't do that, simply pull over... but don't expect locals to do that... they'll just drive on through.

We have never been asked for an International Driver's License, even though we have often read you should have one. Bottom line.... read up on the rules of the road for driving in foreign places, and just go have fun.

Happy travels... even if you don't travel the world... just remember that life is a journey... embrace and enjoy it!   Judy and Mark

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