This is day four of my seven days one way rental car out of Florida adventure from Jacksonville Airport to Norfolk, Virginia. I have a Nissan Altima for $15 per day after tax. $105 for one week of one-way travel up the Atlantic Coast with a National Car Rental.
This Florida deal is available from all the major rental car companies like Avis, Hertz and National at just about any airport location in Florida through May 31 for any car size from Economy to Full Size. All you have to do is drive the car out of Florida to just about anywhere. I even checked driving to California and it was the same $15 per day.
Orlando, Florida to JFK, New York is $230.63 for 15 day rental from National.
Every person I’ve been telling about this rental car deal during my trip had no idea that it was possible to rent a car one-way for so little money. Simply buy a one-way ticket to Florida and drive back home seeing sights of the USA along the way.
My car pickup experience in Jacksonville Airport.
In Jacksonville Airport I walked across the street from the airport baggage claim directly to the rental car garage. There was a row of ten to 20 cars and I was told to pick any car I desired. I tried out a Toyota and when I realized it did not have electric seat adjustment buttons, I changed my mind and went with the Nissan Altima. There were all kinds of models to choose from in the garage.
There were also a dozen or more SUV vehicles, but I think they cost more.
Even after four days of driving this car I still can’t park it straight between the lines.
This is such a great deal that Ithink this might just become an annual road trip opportunity for touring the southeast USA. I figured visiting Georgia and the Carolinas in early May would be great weather. The skies have been incredibly blue without a cloud for days. The downside for me is the near record breaking heat everyday so far with anticyclone conditions keeping the region dry and hot in the 90s. That is an upside for many tourists visiting the region. The beaches and swimming pools are packed.
All the blue skies make for great photo opportunities. I drive, get out of the car and snap photos of scenery and when I get too hot, I jump back in the car and crank the air-conditioner while I drive to another place.
May River at Bluffton, South Carolina.
Bluffton is the small town where there is an old oak tree estimated to be 350 to 400 years old, named the ‘Secession Oak’. Robert Barnwell Rhett, an antebellum U.S. Representative for South Carolina, gave a speech on July 31, 1844 under the large oak in Bluffton arguing for the state to secede from the Union. In December 1860, South Carolina did secede with a vote made in Charleston.
I drove to Bluffton, South Carolina to see the Secession Oak, only to learn it is located on private property and inaccessible. I walked around the one small touristy street of rural Bluffton, snapped some photos and jumped back in my $15 per day rental car, cranked up the AC and continued the adventure.
A classic rock radio station I was listening too offered the near-perfect advice. Roll down the windows and crank up the rock cause in two months time (July-August) it will be too hot to drive with the windows down.
For me, yesterday’s 94F was already too hot for rolled down windows.
I am loving my rental car air conditioning this road trip.
Sign in Bluffton, South Carolina. The coastal forest, marsh and swamp region of South Carolina is known as the Low County.
Life in the Low Country
- You spend more $ on sunscreen than groceries.
First stop I made was at a Publix Market in St. Augustine, Florida where I purchased sunscreen and bug spray. Been using the sun screen a couple times a day. Only used the bug spray once in four days. Biggest surprise so far this trip is encountering so few mosquitoes. My one bug bite was in downtown Savannah and not the marshes and swamplands I have been wandering around outside in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.
Tomorrow is North Carolina.
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