From Lousiana to NYC - Is our 3 months trip plan realistic ? :)

[lamoudamou]

Thank you for your reply.
Actually, we wanted to travel early in the year so it could be more affordable than in the summer. We are planning on doing national parks, maybe not a lot, we still want to be visiting the big cities since my boyfriend and I only went to NYC.

Thank you for your advice about camping, we are planning to do some camping in the parks and stay in hotels/motels/airbnb/couchsurfing in big cities.

About work, we ask for a sabbatical, so it's not a paid vacation. But we do have 5 paid weeks vacation per year in France which is really cool indeed.

[Midwest Michael]

I think you're going to find a real difficulty trying to do a 3 month lease. I'm not aware of anyone who will do such a short term lease, and even if you got over that issue, with a lease, you're typically still responsible for finding insurance and getting the vehicle registered, which are very, very difficult to do as a foreign tourist that's not on a long term visa.

Also keep in mind, even if you somehow find a way to overcome those problems and are able to lease a car, driving in Mexico still has its own challenges. American Insurance isn't valid in Mexico, and so you'll have to buy separate Mexican Auto Insurance (there are numerous places to buy it near every major border crossing). Additionally, if you are driving more than a few miles from the border, then you need a special permit from the Mexican Government - again, not difficult to get, just involves some time, money, and paperwork.

It may simply be easier for your friends in Mexico to try to come up to Texas as visit with you for a bit.

[Rick Quinn]

Hello again. Another possibility would be to leave your American rental car in a safe parking lot in the U.S., and rent a car on the Mexican side of the border for your visit with your friends in Chihuahua. Speaking from my own experience, safety is not a huge concern as long as you use common sense and avoid dangerous situations. Personally, I love traveling in Mexico; it would probably be worth a seperate three month vacation, though the most interesting parts of the country are well south of the border area. I have an article on my personal website called Mexican Road Trip, circa 2015. It's packed with information about the border and all the red tape, so you might find it of interest.

Rick

[AZBuck]

I'm afraid Michael is probably right, it may be more trouble than it's worth to set up a lease instead of a rental for the car. I was thinking in terms of someone who's already here and has US insurance. Still it might be worth looking into. You should also check out European consolidators such as Europcar, autoeurope, and Rentalcars.

As for 'local' home rentals, airbnb tends to be for shorter stays of a few days at most even if you can sometimes rent entire houses or apartments rather than just a room in a B&B. For longer term rentals, there are sites such as VRBO, HomeAway, FlipKey, and others. Or you can just do a web search on the city/town name and the words 'vacation rental'.

AZBuck