[LivinLOS]

Basically the IDL is a legal document but its become a semi scam.

An IDL is merely a translation of your driving license, to be carried along with your home country license, and is then accepted in any country that accepts your own and is designed to help the police actually read and understand it. It has no additional protection for countries that do not allow you to drive on a home country license.

An IDP is a license issued in your home country, based on your home country license, I think for a 1 year max, that allows you to drive in any of the signatory countries without your home country license.

The IDL, being just a translation, can be produced by all kinds of people, you can buy them online for as little as 20 USD and they can be valid for 10 years. They are fine for handing to 3rd world cops (I bought a nice package of official looking book and 2 cards in case one got lost for about 35 or 40 USD) and low risk if you lose your wallet. But they are not legally covering and insuring you here.

The company selling these through the gazette knows this and tricks people into a 6k fee for essentially an (almost) worthless bit of paper. Last year I went through the effort of getting my Thai IDL just to see how it all works, would love to show that one back in Europe. Also while the Euro / Brit IDL's are just this flat grey nasty card the Thai one is a really ornate gold on cream, complex pretty thai pattern. Simple little thing but they really made a much more attractive package out of it.