Ever rented a car abroad? You have my sympathies. Every single last one of them.
You're fresh off a long-haul flight, have to stumble through a rental car depot that looks like it hasn't been updated since the '90s, stand in a queue behind 10 other dazed travelers, only to finally get upsold insurance you probably don't need and watch them swipe your card for a deposit more expensive than your car rental. Or, at least, that's how it usually goes for me.
But on my latest trip abroad, I tried something different. I visited San Francisco from the UK and decided to rent through Turo instead. Honestly? It made the usual rental car routine look like a relic of the past.
Turo is a car-sharing platform -- basically Airbnb, but for cars. Instead of dealing with rental car corporations and endless paperwork, you're borrowing a car directly from its owner. Or host, as Turo calls them.
They list their vehicle on the app, you choose what you want, and the rest happens in a few taps. It's been growing in popularity in the US, especially for travelers who want something a bit different -- or just want to avoid the calamity that is the rental counter.
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A car waiting for me to hop in and drive off
The Turo rental car was parked in the garage waiting for me to unlock it with the app, hop in and drive away. Connor Jewiss/CNET
For this trip, I went for a 2026 Tesla Model Y. Because if you're in California, you may as well lean into it. Plus, it's a familiar (and great) car to drive, and the Tesla app makes the Turo process even easier. Almost laughably easy, in fact.
The car was waiting for me in the SFO International Garage (Turo's got a permit to operate in Garages A and G), and I didn't even need to meet anyone. Turo makes it dead simple to do everything in-app. You can handle all the ID verification before the trip, so there was no need to flash my ID in person. All I needed to do at pickup was take photos to validate its condition. 28 photos, to be exact -- just to cover all the bases.
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