I have always wanted to visit Cornwall, the southeastern corner of England, which is a rural peninsula bordered by dramatic cliffs and beaches. Cornwall isn’t the kind of place where you can go to one town and explore it for days, however. I wanted to go from beach to village to cliff top to copper mine, so I decided that renting a car would be the best way for me to see this beautiful part of England. 

This raised several problems. First, I was 21, and there are only a few rental companies who will allow people under 25 to rent cars. Second, I’m American, and this is the UK. Not only do they drive on the left side of the road, they also have their steering wheel on the right side of the car. Also, the majority of rental cars in England have manual transmission. 

I know how to drive a manual, but it had been almost two years since I last did it. At this point, most rational people would have decided that renting a car would be too much of a risk, and decided to rely on public transport, despite the limiting factors. I, however, went ahead and booked a car. 

Even though my brain didn’t remember how to drive a manual, muscle memory kicked in and my body knew exactly what to do. Figuring out how to drive on the wrong side of the road was more difficult. When I pulled out onto a country road with no other traffic, it was easy to revert to the right side out of habit. It took a while to get used to and to get an understanding of where my car was in the lane. That was important when I came upon the tiny farm roads in Cornwall: barely wide enough for my tiny car to fit, lined with stone walls, and with a speed limit of 60 miles per hour, these were technically two way roads. If you come upon a car driving in the opposite direction, you have to slow down and hope that there is a wide enough spot in the road for you to pass each other. Fortunately, the other car knew what they were doing in most of these situations and helped me out. 

I ended up driving about 500 miles the whole weekend, and got my car back to the rental company on time with no problems. It was a stressful experience, but I got to see some truly amazing sights in Cornwall, and stay with a lovely Airbnb host in a tiny village, which would have been impossible if I had relied on public transport. Overall, I felt like my experiences and learning this new skill were worth all the trouble. Even if I can’t list driving as an achievement on a resumé, I’m glad I did it, and it is a skill that I will never lose and which may come in handy in the future.