May
19
File this under tips…. We have three cars even though we only have 2 adults that drive. One of our cars is an older sporty Nissan Pulsar that does not have a backseat suitable for a baby carseat. It’s our spare for when another car is in the shop and it get’s pretty good gas mileage, so when the prices go up one of us will likely drive it for a bit better mileage. We have a subaru wagon (outback sport) that is our newest vehicle (1999 if I recall correctly.) It can fit us all in, but things are cramped by the time we get all our stuff in. (Suitcases, cooler, etc.) For this reason we got a luggage rack style carrier a few years ago which was before our youngest was born. Now with two kids and the requisite clothes/toys/playpen to sleep in/etc….. we’ve outgrown the subaru for vacation time.
Our third car is a 1990 Honda Accord and again, the storage space just doesn’t cut it for the family trip any more.
For our most recent trip to Surfside Beach, SC for our family vacation we had a rental van and it worked out just great. We had plenty of room for the cooler as well as in car entertainment and luggage, food stuffs for snacks (and meals for the 14 month old.) There was room for the pack n play playpen that our youngest would sleep in when we made it there, the baby carrier backpack that really just doesn’t fold up much, etc.
Enterprise car rental is where we managed to rent the van and the vehicle was a Dodge Grand Caravan with the stow and go seating. I was really impressed with the vehicle (I had not driven a Dodge before, nor a van except for within a car dealership lot.) We’ve toyed with buying a van as our next vehicle and after this trip I’m a bit more convinced that a van will be our choice next time around. This vehicle supposedly seats 7. To be honest that back row will have some cramped leg space I think, but it would be possible to get 7 passengers in. We folded one of the middle row seats down to give our oldest a bit more legroom in the back row. Our infant seat was anchored securely behind the driver side seat and we had room for a large thermoelectric cooler in the floor next to him.
The only thing I didn’t like was the difficulty of the front passenger to reach and hand things to the other passengers. My wife usually drives because she get’s carsick riding, so I’m used to being in the passenger seat and in charge of handing snacks/etc. off which was more challenging in the van.
Some benefits of renting a vehicle for your vacation are that you can get a vehicle that get’s better gas mileage than your own (ours got ~25 miles per gallon over the trip.) More space, or simply better maintained. I remember growing up, my parents always made a point to have the car serviced not long before we were going on a long trip to make sure everything was working well… it’s really not a bad idea. The price wasn’t that bad either it came to between $50 and $60 a day and of course they have an 800 number that you can call if you have any problems.
The biggest hassle, I thought was having to get things unloaded and delivered back the day we got back into town, so if you’re renting a vehicle I would suggest giving yourself some grace time for the pickup and redelivery of your rental vehicle. It will make things a bit less hectic for you. Of course it’s also a bit challenging to get used to a new vehicle in time for a long drive, but having a different vehicle helped me to switch mental gears from my day to day “hurry and get things done” mindset to…. “we have plenty of time”.