I will be flying into Homer. After a few days in Homer, I want to rent a car and drive it to Seward, returning the car the same day. However, I just checked car rental prices for Hertz (which seems to be the only car rental place in both places) and the quote they gave me is $422.99 for a single day!

I realize there is a dropoff fee, but $422.99 is ridiculous, and I refuse to do that rental.

I am thinking of taking the 2 hour bus to Kenai, where there is another Hertz, and this one charges about $152 for the Seward dropoff.

Do any of you know of any other options for getting to Seward, other than the 5.5 hour bus?

I just checked the prices for the reverse direction, driving Homer to Seward, instead of Seward to Homer. The rental price is less than half: about $203 instead of $500.

But $203 is still a lot for only one day, so if anyone has any other suggestions, I would appreciate it.

Forgot to mention: I thought the Hertz Web site might be wrong, so I telephoned Hertz to verify the $422 price. This time I was quoted a price of over $500 for a single day!!

No there is no other option, either Hertz or bus, direct Seward/Homer.

Even in a car, the drive from Homer to Seward is not a quick trip. The road is mostly 2 lane, and you will often be stuck behind RVs, trucks, etc. 5.5 hours scheduled for the bus ride sounds about right. One way car rentals are always more expensive, and especially going between 2 small towns in Alaska.