A Rental Car Road Trip on a Shoestring Budget

May 11, 2009 at 1:59 PM | by pbb | Comments (7)

Jaunted editor Paul Brady is back on terra firma in the U.S. after nearly a year away in South America. So how did he get back here? By taking the ultimate road-trip. All this week, he'll be telling us just how he did it. Any questions or suggestions? Let us know.

There's something uncanny about planning a one-way road trip through the southern United States from an internet cafe in Cartagena, Colombia. But plan ahead you must, if you want to take advantage of the incredibly cheap one-way rental car deals out of Florida on offer right now.

Why the bargains? As the companies gear up for summer road trip season, they realize all their inventory is at Florida airports, dumped there by snow bunnies who drove down for sun and fun but flew back home. By offering super-cheap rides to people like me--north-bound drivers with flexible travel plans--they can easily repopulate the country with rentals.

When I was cooking up my scheme, I'd been in Colombia for a few weeks--and South America for almost eight months. I was ready to get back to my home country, and I found a great deal on a one-way JetBlue flight from Bogota to Orlando. But my final destination was Tulsa, where I planned to visit my girlfriend--and get reacquainted with such all-American offerings as minor league baseball, QuikTrip, iced tea, Thai restaurants and hot water.

Through Alamo, I booked a "Chevy Aveo or equivalent" for four days, planning to make stops--after an overnight at an airport hotel in Orlando in case of airline snafus--in Apalachicola, Florida, New Orleans, Shreveport, Louisiana and finally Tulsa. (This turned out to be a pretty aggressive driving schedule for a tourist, but more on that later this week.) The total estimated cost, including the free GPS nav system I got for using the booking code FLDAGPS, was just $114.97.

After I'd made all the plans, all that was left to do was enjoy some Cartagena nightlife, get to Bogota and pick up the car in Florida. I also invited my GF to do the road trip with me, so she booked a one-way on Southwest from Tulsa to Orlando. We rendezvoused at the not-really-that-seedy La Quinta Orlando Airport West and fell asleep watching a Mythbusters marathon, which is not a euphemism.

The next morning, the Alamo desk agent at Orlando International could've been a bit more professional and not asked, "You're gonna drive *that* car all the way to Tulsa? Are you sure?" But I considered her attitude part of the fun of being back in the United States, quickly finished up the paperwork and rolled to the garage. One advantage of getting to the check-in counter at 8:30 am? Your pick of the cars in stock. Instead of a Chevy, I snagged a black Kia Spectra, plugged in my loaner Garmin GPS, punched in Apalachicola, Florida and hit the road.

Stay tuned tomorrow for more road-trippin' adventures.

Related Stories:
· One-way Florida Rentals with Avis [Official Site]

Comments (7)

Return to » A Rental Car Road Trip on a Shoestring Budget

taking rental cars one-way and how they got them back to the original destination. now i know! also, $114 for four days and a GPS? awesome.

I once did the rental with GPS thing while in LA, and my total was no where near yours. In fact, it was more than my stay at The Standard. Cheers to promotional codes; I'm going to do that next time because LA sucked because of it.

Note to self: Figure out excuse(s) to take road trip(s) from Florida in April/May. Great tip.

* Go up the Prayer Tower at Oral Roberts University. It's a real Jesus-meets-Jetsons experience. * Eat at India Palace, at 71st & Lewis * Drive on -- more surviving Rte 66 miles in Oklahoma than anywhere else. The stretch to OKC is great. * Try catching a show at Cain's downtown. Bob Wills lit it up in the Western Swing days, Sex Pistols played their 2nd-to-last show there. * Gilcrease Museum is the best -- cowboy art mostly. * Local spotting: at the mall! No, 'Brookside' is better, though not exactly a new East Village. * See your girlfriend

thats a very clever car rental system, all you have to do is work out where its going to be cheapest then drive it in the opposite way. God bless the USA

loved the little car hire story, wish I had been there when the Alamo agent gave her opinion... lc

Are there any car hire deals in the late winter/spring season? Realise car rental demand isn't very high and I've been doing some research and have found prices to be quite expensive. Help would be appreciated!

Jaunted

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