metry1

We hope to take our daughter to tour colleges this summer. We plan to rent a car but can only find outrageous rental rates ($95 day). We thought of flying "open jaws" and dropping off the car at a different airport expecting this to be more expensive but even returning the car to Charlottesville is high.
We thought about taking the train but am finding equally high rates on Amtrak. Are there regional trains that are less expensive? Any advice you can give in helping us is greatly appreciated!

yk

You need to tell us exactly which colleges in which cities/towns you want to visit. We can't tell you if there are regional rails without know what your itinerary is.

Have you checked the prices on all the different car rental companies? There are also discount codes you can find on the web which can substantially lower your rental rate.

emalloy

If you pick an airport in the middle of your states, say Philadelphia, you can rent a car for a week for much less unless you want a Lincon Town Car or something big. Check with some of the discount guys and get a price and then call the rental company and ask if they will match it. Plan a loop to avoid the drop off charges if you can.

metry2

Thanks for your replies. We hope to visit UVA, William & Mary, and Princeton. We priced a great airfare flying into Charlottesville and out of Newark, but may fly into a different airport if the car rental is cheaper, or if we can take the train part of the way. I understand that the train stops in Princeton. Any advice is appreciated!

Centralparkgirl

I believe Amtrak and NJ Transit go to Princeton. Amtrak is much more expensive than NJ Transit.

yk

I don't see how you can get from Virginia to NJ without a car. Yes, Amtrak and then regional rail is possible, but it involves lots of changes and won't be cheap.

You can get to Princeton Univ by taking AMTRAK or NJ Transit (get off at Princeton Junction; not Princeton, then change for another train:
http://www.princeton.edu/main/visiting/travel/trains/

But NJ Transit only goes as far south as Trenton. Which means that you have to take SEPTA from Philadelphia to Trenton, then change for NJ Transit to Princeton Junction.

How are you getting from Virginia to Philadelphia?

I'd look into renting a car, the high rate you're seeing is probably the one-way drop off fee. Try googling for discount codes for various car rental companies. Sometimes people may post a discount code that waives the drop off fee.

Or try using AutoEurope.com. I know that is strange, but I've read success reports here where AutoEurope doesn't charge the outrageous one-way drop off fee when renting a car in the US.

metry2

YK, can you clarify how I should google for discount codes? Is there a particular website I should use? The high rates I have so far are from travelocity and sidestep. I remember that there were 3 car rental companies listed from Charlottesville, Avis and Hertz were 2 I remember. Thank you!

yk

You can try "one-way rental discount code Hertz" or other combos.

Or, you can go to flyertalk.com and look at the Hertz forum, the Avis forum etc, and comb through the threads there for coupon codes. The coupon threads are usually stickys at the top of each forum, and you'll need to read through the last 5 pages for the latest valid codes. [That's why I usually do when I rent a car. It's very time-consuming but sometimes the savings are really significant.]

But before you do that, you should try AutoEurope.com and see what rates they quote you.

longhorn55

Have you considered flying in/out of D.C.? Perhaps the rental car is so expensive because there's not much of an inventory in Charlottesville. There are tons on rental cars in the D.C. area (3 possible airports), so I would expect the rates to be less. The driving time from National Airport (closest to D.C.) to Charlottesville is around 2.5 hours and the driving time from Princeton to National is about 3.5 hours.

zlaor

It took our family around 9 hours to drive from Yorktown, VA to NJ. Lots of bottlenecks around the Maryland border and the Delaware bridges (you're in Delaware for a few miles and pay a nice sum of money in road-tax for that privilage ).

DO NOT rent a car in NJ, the thieves charge you $5 per day "homeland security" tax.

debCT

My son went to Wm & Mary and always took the train home - the station is right in the middle of town and much more relaxing than the drive would be - from Richmond to the Jersey TPK is notorious.
You could rent a car to get from UVA to W&M and then take the train to Princeton (change trains in Phil)...

Birdie

9 hours from Yorktown to NJ???? Wow, I complain when its 7.

jo_ann

I don't see a mention of where you're coming from, but I'm seeing lots of notices now on sudden airfare sales, I guess as the airlines see that the planes aren't going to be anywhere near full this summer. I live in Richmond - we've got AirTran and Jetblue, which is pulling down some fares (not all, but some) on the major carriers. Charlottesville (less competition among the airlines since it's so small) is probably an easy (and lovely) hour 20 or so west of RIC (Richmond's airport); Williamsburg is about 40 minutes max east of the airport. So - have you looked into: fly into Richmond, head to beautiful Charlottesville (probably spend a night there?). Next day: drive to Wmsburg, tour William & Marry, get back to the airport (or spend another night - don't know how long you're allocating). At that point: back to RIC for a flight to Newark, which google maps says is 55 minutes from Princeton.
Maybe I just know I-95 too well, but no way would I want to have done all that driving when my (now 20) daughter was looking at collegss - whichever one was last would have plummeted in popularity, I fear!
Obviously, you cold also just knock out Princeton first by using Newark, then heading to wonderful Virginia! And I'm looking at a similar kind of thing next February with rental cars and the "hidden drop fee" of taking a car to a different airport was a sudden loss of free mileage - ouch! So - we're doing a multi-flight arrangement, as I've just suggested to you.
Good luck - great college choices all.

metry2

Thanks, JoAnn and all for your advice. I will check into flying to Richmond, then look again at the logistics of getting to Princeton. Glad to hear there are air sales this summer! Karen