How can
overland travelers save hundreds of dollars in rental-car costs during
cross-country or intercity trips? Easy: By linking up with the
nationwide network of so-called drive-away companies that use
independent travelers to deliver cars to a mutual destination for them.
Its nameplate read "Honda," but it was
moonlighting as my workhorse.
It was somebody else's car, though I
hadn't stolen it. And a couch
was balanced on its roof, en route to my new apartment in Chicago. I
had a vague sense that I'd better not scratch this Honda, at least not
too badly, or I wouldn't get back my deposit on it.
Bruce Todd finds it hard to resist driving other people's vehicles.
"I've been driving people's cars for ten years now and ninety-nine
percent of the time I've had fun doing it," he says. "It saves the cost
of a rental car. And in the end, I always meet the owners, who are
appreciative and congenial." Such was his summary of the automobile
transportation industry's best-kept secret--the driveaway.