When you go on vacation, it can be hard leaving your car back home. Now you've got to depend on everyone else to get you where you want to go and then you end up spending half the vacation waiting around. Hey, get your own set of wheels and you'll probably get lost a few times in a new place, but at least you're out there discovering the essence of this great destination—and at least you're free to do things on your own.

But when shopping for cars, you need to keep a few things in mind to get the best value for your money. You need to do a proper car rental price comparison.

1. Price

When doing a car rental price comparison, the obvious first thing to look at is price. There are some amazing services online—small booking engines that will browse all the different rental agencies available in your destination and return the results, displaying the cheapest rates for you to check out.

2. Reputation

Just because you find the cheapest rate doesn't mean you should take that rate, however. Cheaper is not always better, as you well know. Rather, you should open another browse and dig a little deeper to find out more about the company's reputation.

Are they credible? Have they been known to scam people? Do their cars have a history of breaking down? Dig up the dirt and find out if they are really the best company to go with based on a discount in price.

3. Insurance

What kind of insurance does the company offer—are you going to be properly covered in a worst case scenario? Because the results of any car rental price comparison aside, saving money doesn't make a lot of sense if you end up buying a car because you weren't properly covered.

4. Location

Finally, make sure that the car rental agency is actually operating in the area you're going to be visiting. Most car rental browsing systems will allow you to pre-select a destination to solve this problem for you, so make sure that you go with one that does.

Renting a car on vacation isn't in everyone's budget, but for those of us who like the freedom to go when and where we please, it is well worth the price. And thanks to technology that allows us to book and compare online, it's never been cheaper.