Self drive or with a driver? An honest comparison

We hire vehicles with a driver and without one, so there is no answer here that suits us better than the other. There is a real difference between the two, though, and it is not mainly about money.

Take self drive when

• You are staying put and making short trips — errands, the market, visiting family across town
• You want to leave when you feel like it, including before dawn and after dinner
• You are comfortable in Indian traffic, or you are taking an automatic and the roads are quiet
• The trip is flexible and you would rather decide as you go

Self drive is also usually cheaper for a day of ordinary running around, because you are paying for the vehicle and not for somebody's time. If your day is two short trips and a lot of sitting still, a driver spends most of it waiting, and you pay for the waiting.

Take a driver when

• The day is a sightseeing circuit with a stop every half hour — the parking, not the driving, is the work
• You are going a long way on the highway, particularly to Thiruvananthapuram or Madurai
• There is an airport run at an unsociable hour
• It is a wedding, or any day where the family should not be driving
• Nobody in the group knows the roads and the timings

The thing people underestimate

Temple and monument hours. Most of the places worth visiting in this district shut in the middle of the day and open again late afternoon, and they are not all the same hours. A driver who does this every week knows which one to go to first; somebody with a map finds out by driving to a closed gate. Over a full day that is an hour or two, and it is the difference between seeing four things and seeing two.

The false economy

A long highway day self-driven, by somebody who is tired and does not know the road. The saving is real and it is not worth it. If the day involves three hours each way and an early start, take the driver and sleep in the back on the way home.

You can mix them

Nothing stops you hiring self drive for a week in town and taking a vehicle with a driver for the one day you are doing the circuit. That is what a lot of families visiting for a fortnight end up doing, and it is usually the cheapest version of a good trip rather than a compromise.