We are flying into portland, oregon from Georgia to visit relatives this summer. I have always wanted to visit Glacier Nat. park and the Banff area. It looks like Alamo and National car rental (according to Breezenet.com) will let us pick up a car in Portland and drop it off in Calgary with no drop off charge. Does this sound reasonable if we have 12 additional days to visit these areas? We would fly out of Calgary. Thankyou.

I am only stopping here to express the thought that IF you find the costs too great for picking up in Portland, Oregon and dropping off in Calgary 12 days later, you should look into picking up in Portland, then driving one-way to Vancouver, and maaaaaybe making a brand new and unique rental to reduce the often-much-higher daily rate for the one-way rental.

Translation:

IF you find that there is no actual "drop off charge", but that the daily rate is something like $70 per day (or whatever), then you might do well to accept the one-way rental for a couple of days from Portland to Vancouver, then rent a different, canada-only car once there and for the rest of your trip. (with the daily charge being perhaps $35 - or whatever)

Vancouver is a bit more prominent on the airport/travel map, and perhaps airfares would be competitive too.

From Vancouver you could still drive east and enjoy the Canadian Rockies, and perhaps even VISIT Calgary/Edmonton too before returning to fly out of Vancouver.

BC is gorgeous in so many areas/ways, and I am only throwing this out there as an alternative IF you are stymied by something in the budget.

Do a price comparison between the two options and see if it is worth pursuing.

Thankyou. You are making sense. The daily rate is about $60 for the Portland-Calgary car rental and it would be cheaper to do this trip with Vancouver as a base. I will have to think about all this. Thanks

If you are thinking of renting in Vancouver and returning in Calgary, better check those rates too. When I have priced them in prior years, it was cheaper to fly to Calgary from Vancouver and rent/return locally.

We flew into Seattle last July and took the Amtrak train into Vancouver (only $120 for may family of 6) and the Cascade train runs right down to Portland.

We rented a van in Vancouver - at the train station for a week and returned it to the airport in Calgary and we paid $550.

Vancouver to Calgary is a beautiful drive!

Thankyou. This is getting to be too many things to think about but I will consider it as well. I am surprised at how reasonable the train is.