Mauritius drives on the left, and the driver sits on the right. For a large part of the world that is already normal. For everyone else it is one afternoon of concentration followed by a fortnight of not thinking about it.
The roads themselves are not difficult. They are narrow, busy and slow, and the whole island is crossed in under two hours. What tires people out is not the driving but the density: village, junction, bus, pedestrian, dog, junction, village.
Left-hand driving: the first hour
Take the first hour seriously and the rest of the trip looks after itself.
Keep two rules in your head. Your body stays near the centre line of the road — if the kerb is suddenly very close on your right, you have drifted. And on any junction or roundabout, look right first, because that is where the traffic is coming from.
Everything else is muscle memory. You will reach for the gear lever and find the door. You will put the wipers on instead of the indicators, roughly four times, and each time somebody in the car will enjoy it. Neither is dangerous.
What is worth avoiding is a hard first drive. Coming off a night flight and immediately taking on the Port Louis ring road is the one combination that catches people out. If you land tired, consider delivery to your hotel the following morning instead — the airport guide covers both options.
Roundabouts and the motorway spine
The island has one motorway, running from near the airport in the south-east up through Port Louis and on towards the north. It is well surfaced, well signposted and the fastest way to move between coasts. Almost every long journey here is a stretch of motorway with village roads at each end.
Roundabouts turn clockwise. You give way to traffic already on the roundabout, coming from your right, and you signal left as you leave. They are used constantly, including on the motorway approaches, and local practice is brisk: gaps get taken. If in doubt, wait for a gap you are certain of rather than a gap you might just make.
The Port Louis stretch is the pinch point of the whole network. In the morning and again in the late afternoon it slows badly, and a journey that takes forty minutes at noon can take twice that. Plan around it rather than through it.
Village roads, buses and pedestrians
Off the motorway, the character changes completely. Roads narrow to a car and a half. There are no pavements in most villages, so people walk in the road, children included. Dogs sleep in the shade at the edge. Sugar cane lorries pull out slowly. Everything is fine at 30 kilometres an hour and unforgiving above it.
Buses deserve a paragraph of their own. They are frequent, they stop wherever a passenger is standing, and they pull out again with more confidence than warning. Leave room behind them and expect the stop.
Overtaking on a village road is rarely worth it. You will meet the same vehicle at the next junction, and the road is too narrow for the manoeuvre to be comfortable.
Speed limits and cameras
Speed limits are posted, they change frequently along a single road, and they are lower than visitors expect — especially where a motorway passes through a built-up stretch. Read the signs rather than the traffic around you.
There are fixed and mobile speed cameras on the main roads, and police checks are routine rather than unusual. Carry your licence and the car's paperwork with you; the rental company hands over what belongs in the car at the handover.
Fines follow the car and end up with you. Speeding fines, parking charges and toll or road charges arising while the car is in your care are yours to settle, including when notice arrives after the car has gone back. Some companies add an administrative amount for processing them, where their rules on the car page say so. The rental terms set this out in full.
Night driving and what is on the road after dark
Dark arrives quickly and completely here, and unlit village roads are genuinely dark. Combine that with people walking on the carriageway, unmarked edges and the occasional dog, and night driving asks for a slower speed than the same road at noon.
None of this makes evening driving a bad idea — it just makes it a different one. Give yourself more time than the map suggests, use main roads where there is a choice, and be conservative about overtaking.
Rain changes things too. Tropical downpours arrive hard, drain slowly and turn the surface greasy for the first few minutes. When it starts, the sensible response is to slow right down and let it pass; it usually does, quickly.
Fuel stations and the full-to-full rule
Fuel stations are common on the main roads and around towns, less so on the quieter coastal stretches in the south and east. Most take cards, many are attended, and you rarely queue outside the plateau towns.
Cars here are normally handed over with a full tank and expected back full — the fuel policy for each car is stated on its page along with the rest of the specs, so check that line rather than assume. Keep the last receipt: it is the simplest way to settle any question at the return.
Fill up before a long day out rather than during it, and before heading south or east in the evening. Running the tank low is a bad plan on an island where the next station may be twenty minutes of village road away.
Parking at beaches and in Port Louis
Public beaches have car parks, usually informal, often unsurfaced, and full by mid-morning on a Sunday when Mauritian families arrive with picnics. Go early or go on a weekday, and leave nothing visible in the car.
Village centres like Grand Baie get tight in season. A compact car is genuinely easier here, which is one reason it is the island's default rental. Port Louis is the hardest place to park anywhere on the island: use a paid car park rather than circling, and if the trip is only for the market or the waterfront, consider going in early.
Never block a bus stop or a driveway, and pay attention to the yellow lines — they mean what they mean, and the parking charges come back to you.
If something goes wrong on the road
If you have an accident, stop, make the scene safe and involve the police where anyone is hurt or the damage is more than cosmetic. Photograph everything before the cars are moved: position, damage, plates, the road itself.
Then tell the rental company. Your trip page has an SOS and breakdown button that raises an incident, notifies the business and alerts the platform's operators, and the same page carries the chat thread with the company. Use it rather than a phone number written on a folder somewhere — it puts the report on the booking, with a timestamp.
What happens next is between you and the rental business, which owns the car and holds the insurance. The cover guide explains what you would be responsible for and why the handover photographs matter so much.
Getting started
For most visitors a compact car is the right tool here: small enough for village lanes and beach car parks, cheap to fuel, and perfectly happy on the motorway. If you are based on one coast, the north and west pages show what is available locally, and Port Louis covers the capital.