Over the years, I’ve done all kinds of driving tasks that have challenged by abilities. I’ve done hot laps on the race track, gone off-roading on chunky trails, and even tackled the harrowing motorbike swarms of Vietnam. And yet, in all these years, I’d never driven on the wrong side of the road! This month, adventure demanded I learn how—and it was both easier and harder than I thought it would be.
This adventure was spawned thanks to the love I have for one of music’s more obscure and forgotten genres. This past month, I completed a lifelong dream and finally made it to Europe, heading over for a small tour that would see me perform at a grassroots chiptune festival named Wood Chip. Nestled deep in the Danish wilderness, I needed both transport and lodgings for my campsite. A campervan seemed the obvious solution.
This was all well and good, and I made my bookings with excitement. Only, come the big day… I realized I’d given myself quite the challenge. Not only would I be driving on the wrong side of the road, but I’d be doing so in a vehicle a full 90 inches wide. Oh, and it was a manual for good measure. Tally ho, then!
The camper I’d selected for our journey was a hefty beast. I’d initially hoped to find something small, compact, and modern. Perhaps along the lines of a nice VW ID.Buzz with a nice mattress in the back. However, Denmark is a small country, and there simply aren’t a lot of people renting out campers to weird obscure musicians. I had to take what was on offer.
What I wound up with was a full on motorhome. Based on a 2005 Fiat Ducato, this beast weighed a full 6340 pounds, while standing over 9 feet high and 23 feet long. The benefit was that it came with a shower and a functioning toilet, along with gas heating and beds for three. The drawback was that it was huge, hard to maneuver, and not exactly easy to see out of. I was in a small European country and it felt like I was being asked to drive a slightly smaller European country. Or some kind of embassy, at least.
My fears were manifold. I figured it was pretty likely I backed in to something or ran over a few mailboxes on our way to the show. I had concerns about keeping this behemoth in the lane lines on tight Danish roads. My biggest fear, though, concerned coordination. I worried whether I could teach my right hand to shift through the gears, when it was my left that usually handled those duties back home in Oz. If shifting gears wasn’t second nature, the rest of the driving task was going to be so much harder.
Still, needs must and all. I got behind the wheel, checked the mirrors, and got going.
Driving on the wrong side of the road for the first time. Oh, and I picked a motorhome.
Challenging?
Yes. Yes it was.
— Lewin S. Day (@rainbowdefault.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Right away, I was amazed at several things. For one, the Ducato’s clutch and shifter were a pleasure to operate. I’d expected to have a hell of a time trying to launch the heavy camper from a stop, but it was never a problem. Smooth on the third pedal, and the diesel torque ensured we were away without a fuss. My right hand, too, had no issue finding the shifter on the dash. It fell easily to hand and I had no problem walking the van up to second, third, and fourth.
However, I also learned that size does matter. The huge camper towered over everything on the tight suburban streets. I thanked the automotive gods I didn’t need to make any three-point turns as I gingerly inched past parked cars on either side of the road. Each turn was like threading a needle, until the relief of getting out onto the more open main roads. Of course, salvation was brief—I only had ten minutes to get my bearings before we had to peel this thing out on to the highway.
As we approached the on ramp, my strategy was clear. I’d use the best of my driving skills, honed on the aggressive roads of the east coast capitals. One must be clear of intention and decisive if one was to merge safely on to a fast road. I wound the Ducato past 3,000 rpm as I thrusted through the gears, keeping a stern eye on the traffic as I slid on to the highway. Once we’d made it on, my dedicated partner played navigator and spotter, regularly shouting “KERB!” every time I veered too far towards the gutter.
This part of the highway? No lane lines.
“Should we reduce the speed limit?”
“No, why would we do that?”— Lewin S. Day (@rainbowdefault.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Highway travel was surprisingly okay. My lane keeping was acceptable, and I managed to keep weaving to a socially-acceptable level. The Ducato could handle 100 km/h (60 mph) while the fastest traffic roared past closer to the limit of 130 km/h (80 mph). I even managed a couple of overtakes on curiously slow traffic without bringing the Danish road network to a halt. At one point, we came across a section of highway with no lane lines—and I like to think I managed it with aplomb!
It was only on the last stretch of our journey that I was faced with my most hellish challenge. We had to wind down some country lanes that were surely less than two lanes wide as we made our way to the festival spot. The huge girth of the Ducato proved problematic, as I gingerly eased it over crest after crest. Thankfully, we didn’t come to grief, and the handful of other motorists gave us a wide berth when we passed. It was only one particularly hurried bus driver that nearly spent my security deposit when he narrowly avoided clipping the rear end.
All in all, my first experience driving on the wrong side of the road was a harrowing one. It was 55 minutes of white-knuckle action, forever flipping between checking my six for incoming bogies and then flipping back to make sure I was actually staying in a lane. Still, we made it to our destination, and I learned plenty in the process. I then proceeded to set up camp, have some dinner, and played an incredibly fun set in the depths of the Danish night. Couldn’t have done it if I didn’t get there in one piece!
There were parts I found easier than expected. I thought it would be a struggle shifting a manual transmission with my hands swapped around but it was not a problem in the slightest. I had it right in seconds and didn’t make any mistakes. At the same time, there were things I found harder than expected, too. Mostly the positioning of the vehicle in the lane. To be honest, though, I suspect a great deal of that was because the campervan was simply so large. A smaller vehicle would have been far more comfortable, particularly given the size of the lanes in Denmark.
My advice would be simple. If it’s your first time driving on the wrong side of the road, consider being kind to yourself by picking something small and simple. Still, if you’re a masochist, go and get the biggest motorhome you can find and throw yourself to the fire and flames. Hopefully, like me, you’ll make it through unscathed.
Image credits: Lewin Day
I’ve driven on the “wrong” side of the road one time, we were blessed to be able to honeymoon in New Zealand, and we rented a manual Corolla. It was a lot of fun and way easier than I expected it to be to get around. All the roundabouts probably helped, I much prefer them to 4 way stops anyway. I can imagine a manual camper would be a lot harder!
As an American, one of the most terrifying moments of my life was pulling out of Heathrow Airport into rush hour traffic. I’d driven a tiny bit on the left on a quiet road in western Ireland a few years before, but this was a real baptism by fire. You get used to it pretty quickly, though.
The biggest problem I had on that trip: I’d never driven a stick-shift Volkswagen before. I pulled forward out of the parking space and, so, didn’t realize until I tried to maneuver into a parking space in a garage later that I just could not manage to put the thing into reverse. I ended up having to push it back out of the space while traffic built up behind me. At the quiet of the hotel that evening, it took about 30 seconds to realize that you have to push down on the shifter, but in the heat of the moment, I just could not figure that out.
Since then, I’ve driven all over the UK and Ireland and have never had any problems with driving on the wrong side of the road.
Now, the omnipresent HEDGE, 2 inches from your mirror is another thing entirely.
Being from the US, I have considered renting a car when visiting the UK. I decided against it, though, because while I am reasonably sure I could adapt during normal driving (at least not having been run over in a crosswalk as a pedestrian), I am afraid that my ingrained reflexes would lead me to do exactly the wrong thing in an emergency.
I saw some weird squiggly lines on the side of the road in Whitstable. I am not sure I properly navigated them, but outside of your left hand shifting which you probably have no muscled memory for anyway, everything else is similar, just on the other side of the road. Pulling out of say a store parking lot in traffic is when you most likely would accidentally do the wrong lane, or at least veer towards it, but hey, at least in the UK you can read the signs.
I’ve never found driving on the wrong side of the road to be too difficult, but then I’ve only driven RHD vehicles in France, so I’ve not had to deal with the gearstick being on the wrong side.
Honestly, as you’ve described, the switch from RHD to LHD (or vice versa) isn’t that difficult. Driving is driving, and you get used to it quite quickly.
Of course you didn’t exactly help yourself by driving such a large vehicle, but the same problems would have surfaced with a RHD car anyway.
On a trip to the UK last year, we were spending 4 nights in London then heading to Portsmouth to get on a cruise. Not realizing that train tickets would work like plane tickets and get very expensive as the date closed in, I made the last-minute decision to rent an SUV one way and drive us the 2 hours or so.
By the time I got to Europcar, the only vehicle they had for me was a fairly beat up VW Sharan van. I’ve driven plenty of shitty minivans in my time, but I wasn’t counting on a big vehicle in a big city on the opposite side of the road. I hit 2 curbs and scraped a mirror on the 15 minute drive back to the hotel. Every time I made a turn or got to a roundabout, I was chanting “left, left, left”. My wife didn’t think I was nuts, thank goodness.
We made it to Portsmouth no problem, but it is the most stressed I’ve ever been on a drive, and I used to drive Uber from Newark Airport into NYC nightly.
In 1987, I had my first drive on the left in Australia. My pen pal’s mother loaned me her 1976 Toyota Corona Mk2 with automatic gearbox. My brain was still set on the LHD car when I sat in the driver’s seat. As I was about to reverse the car, my muscle memories directed me to turn to the right, instead of left, to view back. My right arm hit the B-pillar, and it hurt like hell.
That dislodged the LHD/right-hand-rule-of-road module instantly. The new module for RHD/left-hand-rule-of-road was activated. Yet, the module was still not fully updated for driving on the left. So, I had to mentally recite “keep on left” over and over for the first three days until the update was fully 100%.
When I drove in the UK, I was perturbed about the laziness and cheapness of designing the RHD dashboard on many European vehicles: the turn signal indicator stalk still on left and wiper control on the right. I hate this set-up because I need my left hand for shifting the gear and using the turn signal indicators but not at the same time. I hate the ignition lock on the right because I would have to use the right hand to unlock and press the door release button or flap. The properly laid-out RHD would allow me to use my left hand to unlock the door lock then insert the key in the ignition lock while my right hand opens and closes the door. Easy-peasy…
In 1980 my brother, a licensed tour bus driver, drove a minibus containing eleven of his relatives around Britain for a three week tour. About two weeks in, having become right comfortable learning how to left hand shift, he pulled out onto the highway for our next destination. The mood in the bus was light and jovial but suddenly dropped silent as my mom spoke up saying “Oh my! That car ahead is on the wrong side of the road!” As we moved forward we were confused that the oncoming car made no attempt to move over. Then my British born sister in law looked up and yelled “NO! WE ARE! We violently swerved back to the left amid a horn blaring just as the car blazed past on our right.
I still recall the gravity of that moment. The tension and the white look on my brother’s face that followed.
Such an easy mistake, and one that will only ever happen in the moment when you think you finally got it mastered.
Memories!
I’m from the UK, so RHD is natural (and as a bonus passing on the left makes it easier to draw your sword and fight if you’re on horseback and right handed, like everyone used to be).
Before I drove LHD for the first time I tried sitting in the passenger seat and changing gears, and it was easy. However when driving the rented LHD 1.6 Opel Vectra up a mountain in Germany I did occasionally punch the door with my left hand trying to find the gearstick. That thing needed the gears changing a lot.
A friend of mine gave me a tip for when you’re driving a wrong-handed car: put a bunch of keys in the passenger door pocket. That way when you inevitability climb in the wrong door out of habit you can get out again holding the keys, say “found them” and walk round to the driver’s side.
Wow, that is like playing life on hard mode.
\My first time driving on the “wrong side of the road” was in Malaysia. It wasn’t too bad except for as soon as I took off from the rental office a monsoon down pour just unleashed on me. I think that a combination of playing a lot of video games driving Japanese cars and living in Hong Kong and watching my dad struggle with our car there helped. After the rain let off it wasn’t too bad as I got used to the turn indicator stalk being on the opposite side.
The real challenge came when I went visited my friend in Thailand a few year later. The car I rented there was RHD but had the indicator and windshield wipers the same as a LHD car, which was super confusing.
I absolutely hate this configuration because it’s hard to shift the gears and use the turn signal indicator stalk at the same time…
Lewin, In vehicles with truck type mirrors, you use them check where you are in the lane, or how close to the edge, quite simple. I often find driving bigger vehicles easier than cars.
I guess I did follow your advice, I have visited the UK a few times and the first vehicle I drove there was an Austin Metro. I’m left handed so shifting was easy, but remembering to keep left was hard without oncoming traffic as a reminder.
I’d probably be OK for size since I regularly drive a 20′ long pickup
When I lived in Germany, we decided to see a show in London. But rather than fly or take a train, we though we’d take the ferry from Calaias. So we drove the LHD Lexus and stayed in Doverfor the weekend, and took the train into London. My wife had alwys wanted to see the white cliffs of Dover, so this was fine with me. I felt this would be an easier experience than driving my vehicle in London!
Dover was fairly easy to navigate. Roundabouts the were the opposite of what I was used to (I have never driven before I landed in Germany), so that was a challenge.
But it wasn’t until the second day (of 4) that realized that the speed was posted in MPH not KPH, and that’s why I was getting flashed and gestures made at me.
SO…those of you in the UK….you are metric except for MPH? Really? How did that come about?
Inquiring minds want to know…
They also use gallons instead of liters….
OR maybe I just made that up.
But they use monarchy gallons, instead of freedom gallons.
And one hour behind the rest of continental Europe despite London and Paris more or less on the same latitude.
I learnt the hard way when I flew in Gatwick from Frankfurt to change the plane for the United States. I realised I had only ten minutes to spare for catching the US-bound plane so I ran like Flash through the terminal. I had no idea how many people I had bumped before arriving at the gate. The ground staff wondered why I was breathing hard, and I was wondering why the ground staff was very nonplussed. One of them told me, “well, the plane isn’t leaving for an hour and half.”
Oh, geesh…
in 1972 I took a trip from home in the US to Africa with my 87 year old grandmother. On a red-eye flight from Rio to Johannesburg we were coming in for landing when I noticed they were driving on the wrong side of the road down there and remarked about it. A very British voice in front of me said “oh no bloke, you’re the ones that drive on the wrong side.” I was very quick to tell him that we drive on the RIGHT side of the road!!
I went through this 3 decades ago when I moved from Australia to Brazil. No big deal really. I noticed only 2 things the first few times driving on the right side of the road. 1) I kept banging my left hand on the door as the muscles went for the manual shifter with the left hand and 2) a weird slight off-balance feeling in the ears as you take tight left curves fast. Something in the inner ear needs to reset. But both disappear very quickly. The thing that gets you killed is being a pedestrian. I still remember the Australian road safety songs for children from the 1970s. “Look to the right, look to the left and look to the right again”…before crossing. Do that in Brazil and you will be roadkill. You need to do the opposite. That took longer to overcome but after feeling the breeze of a large bus side mirror whooshing past your ear at 50 kph and 5 mm of separation, the desire to live helps you learn quickly.
As a US pedestrian, had the opposite in both AU and NZ. Not so bad in cities with lots of pedestrians, but when less foot traffic is around, well, let’s just say lots of horn honking…
I raised my kids in NYC, so they don’t have an instinct for which way the traffic is coming from as pedestrians, because most of the streets are one-way.
Of course, they refuse to learn to drive, so it’s not all great.
I’ve been teaching my kids to check both sides when crossing.
Because cyclists give no fucks.
Yep, the part about looking both ways to cross the street is far more confusing than you would expect. Struggled with this when I visited Thailand from Canada.
Awesome drive, wow you went all in! Going other way I learned to drive on the other side in the UK fresh off traveling from the US into Newcastle and a Mercedes A class. I went around some parking lots a bit and practiced shifting and parking,turning etc. Then first roundabout leaving the Avis lot I went backwards. Was a Sunday morning, a taxi let me know I was number 1 with hand gestures. Didn’t do that again, it’s much easier after probably 10 times and 800+Mi but still feels weird initially.
Someone told me this once and I found it handy on my jaunts around the US: no matter which country you’re in, the driver is always closest to the middle of the road. Keeping that in mind helped me from drifting across towards the kerb.
I still remember the first time driving on the wrong side, it was in a rented convertible Mustang in Hawaii. It all went reasonably well until I relaxed a bit too much and turned into a side street on the left side. Thankfully there was no traffic in the street so I could quickly dart across to the right. My 3 passengers were understanding but not amused.
I drove fairly extensively in the states during my six-month exchange there. I got used to most of it but always struggled a bit with car parks and roundabouts – the latter being thankfully pretty rare in Pennsylvania and the surrounding states where I spent most of my time. Roundabouts would just break my brain because everything was backwards compared to home and there was just this innate feeling of “wrongness” to driving around it anti-clockwise.
I too drove a 30ft campervan during this trip, thankfully at the end of my time there so I was pretty comfortable being on the right by this point. One thing that made me nervous was the enormous rear overhang, which swings out on tight corners. The guy at the rental place told me if you’re driving next to a pole or sign or whatever and need to take a sharp turn immediately after, watch to see the obstacle appear in your side mirrors before turning. Good advice!
When we were in Australia a couple of months ago my wife kept driving the rental way too close for comfort to the dividing line between us and the other lane.
She insisted it was just my perception being off. Except when she pulled into a parking space it would be right on the dividing line between us and the next space. It was still my perception that was the problem, of course.
Good job! Sounds like you had a better first go at it than I did!
Ten years ago we stayed with a mate’s family near Cologne. After a morning run to Aldi (naturally) to grab supplies his mum thrust the keys to their VW van and said ‘you drive back’.
I’m not too proud to admit I would have failed if this was a driving test, cutting some poor Germans off while trying to navigate streets that weren’t two lanes wide and I grabbed the armrest instead of the shifter at least a couple times!
Later on in the trip we rented an F-Type convertible with the supercharged V6 in Stuttgart (ironically we couldn’t find any Porsches nor performance MB’s for rental in the city).
Being nearer to the city centre meant there were more wide streets and the Jag was automatic which of course made keeping lanes and such easier.
Keen to drive LHD again sometime, definitely agree it’s an extra mental load on top of driving in your native side of the road/vehicle for sure but I imagine it gets much less so with extra seat time.
Ooof, you had the same trial! Van is definitely a tougher way to start.
F-Type on the continent sounds like a dream, but.
Lewin, I hope you tried the famous red sausages (rød pølse). With mustard and roasted onions, yum!
I did – at the beautiful Copenhagen Zoo! I have a great photo of the old-school hot dog van.
Haha, your comments about the narrowness of the roads surely prove that Aussies are the Other Americans.
I just drove in left-hand traffic for the first time myself, renting a 6MT Suzuki Swift Sport in Japan. I think this was the right car; the hardest part was that my four-year old insisted on playing only Karma Chameleon or the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack, neither of which really suited my Neo-Tokyo dreams.
Audio choice of nightmare of Nightmare.
The only RHD place I’ve been was Bermuda, but I was too young to drive and you can’t rent a car – only mopeds – on the island because it’s so small.
As a kid, I always thought it looked weird to have the wheel on one side or the other (I guess I liked the symmetry of having the wheel in the middle, but I can’t afford a McLaren F1). I would love to give driving on the left a go, but it’d be best to start at my friend’s house in rural Wales before trying to go into a city center to ensure I’ve got my head on straight.
Highway driving is definitely the easy part. Lane positioning can be an issue, but highways are generally wide enough to be somewhat forgiving. Not so all the tiny secondary roads and one lane town roads.
I also found that driving stick with the opposite hand wasn’t a big deal, but if the pedals had been reversed too I’m guessing I’d have had a different experience.
I live in the US and went to Australia a few years ago. Never had a problem knowing where to drive, how to go through roundabouts, etc but I just had a hell of a time keeping the car centered in the lane. I always wanted to be way over to the left which was dangeous. Luckily people there seemed to be better drivers in general and the speed limits were lower than US roads. Only guy I saw get in trouble on the road was someone driving a ram 1500 like a total maniac. So that was just like home.
The Danes are downright civilized drivers, so aside the narrow secondary roads, you probably chose one of the best countries to have this experience in.
They’re near German in their lane discipline, but the speed limit (in some places nearly 130km/h) prevents the exciting moment where a driver is barreling behind you at 200km/h+ as you’re already overtaking someone.
Enjoy your trip. Skål!
I took a look at the route, and it turns out I drive it several times a year. From CPH to Køge is 110 all the way. It then opens up to 130, but I’m guessing the exit is Ringsted N., so it’s only about seven minutes (so ten if you’re in an RV, even with anti-lag in effect) before you take the exit and head north. Thankfully Denmark is rather flat.
Oh gods – there’s nothing more terrifying on the autobahn than seeing those rapidly flashing high beams in your rear view from the Mercedes/Porsche/BMW that is approaching with roughly the same velocity as an incoming meteorite just as you’re attempting to pass a lorry in a shitty Ford Ka.
There were a couple sections where people were approaching 130, which, as an Australian… was wild. I didn’t dare take the Ducato past 110. XD