RV Rental With Driver? Possible?

Yes.

I needed to get my MH out west and did not want to drive it and I found this service available within the horse industry.

These people transport horses all over the USA. In FW's, LQ's, hauling a trailer and MH's. And all have their own RV's.

They are licensed, bonded and doing it for a living and because their business does NOT have the dreaded 'I can charge an arm and a leg because it's related to an "RV" in front of their name they are VERY VERY reasonably priced.

It helps if you know someone locally that has horses that can assist you but your can also just look up 'horse transport'. They will drive, move anything RV. And if you can arrange your trip around one of their dead head runs the cost is even far less.

Something you might want to check out, is being a driver crew transporting an RV to that area. You will have to drive it there, but the gas and motel stops are on the company you sign on with.

Clearly, my main purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others...

Thanks, all, for the good info...

If you think the train is expensive you don't want to begin to calculate what you propose would be.

tatest wrote:
Such a thing exists. If you want to live in it the class would be Entertainer Coach or Sleeper Coach. Like what Jessica Simpson uses, for the first, what the roadies travel in for the second.

The coach rental varies with size, equipment, and market, can range between $1000 and $3000 per day. Driver salary and expenses are on top of that, the driver has to follow DOT rules about work time and rest periods, and most contracts require that the driver sleeps in at least business-grade hotel or motel, not in the coach. There are also usually provisions that you periodically vacate the coach for cleaning, and you pay for that too. One-way trip, you also get to pay for the deadhead travel from coach operator's location to your pickup, and back to there from your destination. I learned how all this works from being in a travel club that rents coaches a lot, both day trips and 2-3 week trips.

Entertainers who will not fly charter (the safety record not being great on that) and insist on motor coach travel usually spend a lot more for the coach than what flights and hotels would be. Then they also tend to stay in 4-5 star hotels at the venue, so the charter company has time to clean out the coach.

The search that finds these is "motor coach rental" and it brings up RV rentals, individual motor coach operators, and brokers.

This forum never ceases to amaze me, for the depth and breadth of knowledge people here have.

A round trip from Portland Or to Las Vegas in a 49 passenger MCI bus will cost $12,000. Try to find 47 good friends to help split the costs?

That is 1,100 miles each way. The driver will typically want to stop after 8 hours, or they can have two drivers that switch back and forth on this 17 hour planned trip.

Personally I would rather be on Amtrak than a bus, even a charter bus. You can only move around so much on the bus, but the train, you can go from car to car, and back again.

There are some movie stars who dislike planes, and take a limo from coast to coast. They typically have two drivers, and they take shifts of about 4-6 hours driving. To far in a car for my liking either. That would also be a expensive option.

Good luck!

Fred.

bigfatguy wrote:

Truth be told, my main concern isn't so much the driving the rental car, as the unreliability of Amtrak in the winter.....

Everything is unreliable in the winter.

There are other options.
Do you own a car that could be taken with you ?

If so **I** would fly out and drive you back IF you pay all the expenses.....motel, food, gas, one way plane ticket, etc. and a nominal daily fee.....say $50. Oh, no sharing of a motel room though.

You could drop me off at home on the last day of the trip.

Things like that are not as uncommon as you might think....with a slightly different twist. Specialty vehicles are delivered that way all the time; driver shuttles a fire truck (for instance) half way across the country and then flies back home.

Anything is possible. Want to go to the moon? No problem, it can be done.

Affordable is a whole other story.

Just to give you an idea, a friends company looked into doing a road show in a tour bus like the musical groups use, from Toronto to Miami to Texas and back to Toronto.

They were told it was going to be cheaper to charter a plane.

Such a thing exists. If you want to live in it the class would be Entertainer Coach or Sleeper Coach. Like what Jessica Simpson uses, for the first, what the roadies travel in for the second.

The coach rental varies with size, equipment, and market, can range between $1000 and $3000 per day. Driver salary and expenses are on top of that, the driver has to follow DOT rules about work time and rest periods, and most contracts require that the driver sleeps in at least business-grade hotel or motel, not in the coach. There are also usually provisions that you periodically vacate the coach for cleaning, and you pay for that too. One-way trip, you also get to pay for the deadhead travel from coach operator's location to your pickup, and back to there from your destination. I learned how all this works from being in a travel club that rents coaches a lot, both day trips and 2-3 week trips.

Entertainers who will not fly charter (the safety record not being great on that) and insist on motor coach travel usually spend a lot more for the coach than what flights and hotels would be. Then they also tend to stay in 4-5 star hotels at the venue, so the charter company has time to clean out the coach.

The search that finds these is "motor coach rental" and it brings up RV rentals, individual motor coach operators, and brokers.

>It might be cheaper to buy a train.

I'm sure... in fact, I just realized the roughly $3500 price tag on our last Amtrak trip was ROUND TRIP to NYC... which means my ceiling got a lot lower... Ah well, it was a fun idea...


>Do you have an RV ?
if don't own one, but that idea had occured to me... find someone who could use a vacation, let them drive it home...

>Why a long day in a rental car? There is an Amtrak station in Ft. Lauderdale.
sometime last year the route from Los Angeles to Florida was cut. It now doesn't go east of New Orleans. The Ft Lauderdale station only serves northbound east-coast trains now.

Truth be told, my main concern isn't so much the driving the rental car, as the unreliability of Amtrak in the winter...

Thanks, all...