Renting A Car In A Tropical Climate? Ask For One Of These Colors

Fact #1: The tropics are wonderful. Palm trees! Beaches! So many excuses to jump in a pool! Fact #2: The tropics get hot, by definition. We're talking shiny-faced, pit-stained, sticky-shirted heat, where you feel delirious the moment you step outside, and no amount of water can quench your thirst.

Fact #3: Renting a car in the tropics can save a lot of anguish. The roof will shelter you from the sun and rain. The windshield will shield out the bugs. The air conditioner — well, the A/C just might save your sanity. Whether you're cruising from one under-the-radar Caribbean beach to the next or scoping out the hidden gems of Hawaii that only locals know, the ability to cover great distances in a 68-degree enclosure is pretty amazing.

If you rent a car in the tropics, get ready for fact #4: You'll want a vehicle with lighter colors, ideally white, gray, or silver. White may not be "your color." You may disagree that white even qualifies as a color. But the lighter your vehicle's paint job, the happier you will be, no matter what its make and model. Why? Because darker colors absorb heat, and when the thermometer reads 95-plus degrees out, the interior of your navy-blue rental will bake like an oven.

As a rule, black surfaces absorb heat. You very likely know this already; it explains why touching a blacktop on a playground on a summer day might very well burn your fingertips. Old tractor tires are the same way when they've been left in the sun. The darker the color, the more capable it is of sopping up solar radiation. This is particularly true for motor vehicles, which are made of heat-absorbing metal.

That said, you can't park a white car beneath a Puerto Rican sun on an August afternoon and expect the hood to be cool to the touch; cars will heat up on hot days, period. But lighter-colored cars, and white ones especially, will be significantly less scorching than darker ones. Rest assured that this is not some urban myth — it's just thermodynamics.

Renting a car while traveling is already a trapeze act, as you attempt to safely borrow an expensive machine from (most likely) a very big company while also acclimating to an unfamiliar driving environment. Prices fluctuate dramatically, and you may face a lot of arbitrary hidden fees, especially when renting a car at the airport. Luckily, gray, silver, and white are among the most popular colors of car on the road today, so you shouldn't have too much trouble requesting one in tropical destinations.