Before you go, find a good Okinawa car rental place at the airport online and book one for your entire stay. I know, I know, I’ve said it many times before, but Okinawa is a place that you almost have to rent a car unless you want to be paying mega bucks for taxi’s everywhere.  It’s not difficult to rent a car, most good Okinawa car rental companies and almost every airport has a rent a car either at the airport, or nearby it, you just need to have an International Drivers License, which costs bugger all in Hong Kong and can be got in a week or two without having to leave your apartment.

At most of the Okinawa car rental companies that you’ll come across on Google, most of the staff speak English, you can get them to change the GPS to English, or hire a wifi device (also at every airport in Japan) and use Google Maps.  The only issue is you need to know how to use the Expressway/Tollway booths.  A lot easier for me since the wife speaks and reads Japanese, but could be an issue if you don’t.

My worst nightmare would be going through the wrong booth and holding up the traffic behind me, for most normal people, it won’t be an issue.  Just know there are ETC lanes, don’t use those as they’re for people who have prepaid, just like the AutoToll in Hong Kong. Go through the lanes with a Green sign, which you need to pay at.  Some of them don’t have attendants and you’ll need to figure out how much it is yourself.  Having said all this, we didn’t come across any tollways in Okinawa that I can remember, but for other places, outside Tokyo, Osaka, in Hokkaido, you’ll need to know this stuff if you’re renting a car.

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