Driving in Martinique

Bumping this topic up, hoping for some info!

I will be on Martinique in late March (with teenage daughters) to explore and think toward relocating - I am an online teacher and can take my job anywhere.

Our AirBNB host recommends renting a car. Please share what driving from the airport to the midcoast east countryside--and then exploring--is like.

I have been to Costa Rica and I can't take on traffic and driving like they have in C R .

Merci beaucoup!

We are here now and driving is a bit of a challenge, but could be fun, you just need to be prepared. We are purposely staying on the North Side (less crowded), but all the roads leading here are extremely narrow and mountainous. DO NOT drink and drive here. Lot's (and I mean LOTs) of roundabouts. There are no warning sign the roundabout is coming, so it's fun. Parking in FdeF is very challenging, generally signs (both warning and navigational) are seriously lacking. If you don't already have a local SIM card, do yourself a favor and buy a local SIM card right at the airport (Digicel kiosk is toward the car rental places, open 13:00 to 19:00 local time). Welcome pack is 20 euro, add another 15 so you can buy a Gigabyte of Internet, then you can use google maps for navigation. After we got that - driving all of the sudden become less challenging. Drivers here can be divided into 2 categories: crazy (10-15%) and extremely courteous (vast majority). Driving is difficult, everybody understands this, pulling out of the side street is impossible to check your sides, but if you pull out, traffic will just stop and let you turn.

Once again, main challenge (at least for us) is navigation, offline GPS didn't work for us, so if you get google maps and online (that will also help with Google translate) - you are good to go.