Now, renting a car seems to be a task you can do just about anywhere. If you have a phone, the internet and a credit card, it should be a piece of cake, right? Wrong!

If you've never been to Hawaii, you may not realize that Maui is different from being on the U.S. mainland. "Well, that's the idea," you may say. True, but when it comes to logistics, there can be problems. For example, Maui is a large island. My friend stayed on one side of the island, on the other end of the island from the rental company. She had to really plan out her departure date to make sure she had her car back in plenty of time and still make her connecting flight.

My friend also was disappointed that her dream vacation did not include driving her dream car. She had this fantasy of driving around Maui in a red sports car, like Magnum P.I. Well, when she got there, she found out there was a run on red sports cars that day. All the red sports cars were gone and the selection of rental cars is not the same as in the rest of the U.S. The only red car available was a red Pinto. She could have had a sports car, but when she saw how much more expensive it was, she decided a Pinto was nice, after all. (It costs more here than on the mainland car rentals.)

When she started planning her trip, she had heard that she should early in order to get the one she wanted. There aren't all that many cars available, she was told. She had blown off that advice, meaning to get to it later. Well, she didn't and now she paid for it. See, another piece of advice she ignored was the bit about paying for the rental car early. That way, her red sports car would have been waiting for her and she wouldn't have been stuck with the Pinto. The Pinto that broke down as she was pulling out of her hotel room on her way back to the rental place.

My friend also forgot to buy insurance and road service. It cost her a pretty penny to get road service and she had a hassle with the rental company when it came to settle up the bill at the end of the trip.

The rest of her trip? It was great, she said. But it wasn't the same in a Pinto.