Photo: PR Newswire
Add green to your next trip.
Sharing a roadtrip can reduce your travel costs, as well as gas and oil consumption. Depending on your number of riders, distance you’re traveling, destination and travel-time, driving can be a budget-friendly choice for adventure.
More green for you and your wallet, more green for the planet!
Consider the average cost of the cheapest flight from LAX to SFO this spring (around $45/each way). Add car rentals after a flight: even with last-minute Internet rates, the cheapest car rental costs around $30/day, not including gas and fees.
Why not take your own car?
If your car gets reasonably good gas mileage (20 mpg or more), two travelers can save each other the price of an airline ticket - and the more passengers, the cheaper the trip!
Worried about time?
Ridesharing is not only a green saver, but it can also be a time (and sanity) saver. Consider the time it takes to travel from your house to the airport (which can be an eternity in LA), wait for check-in, wait for boarding, wait for take-off…easily around two hours each way when all is said and done. Add-in car rental fees and gasoline costs once you arrive, time spent dropping the car off and dealing with airport details on your way home…for some trips, driving is the all-around winner.
Where do I find a ridesharer?
There are a number of Web-based trip calculators to help you figure out how much it would cost you to drive. The best site (in this Examiner’s opinion), is AAA-sponsored Fuelcostcalculator.com: an easy way to calculate the cost of your trip based on your distance, type of car, and the price of gas per region. A user-friendly map displays the cost of gas per gallon per US region. A quick click of a few buttons about your car’s make, year, and model provides offers a close estimate of how much it will cost to drive to your destination. The site also provides a link to their Daily Fuel Gauge Report, with more detailed information about gas prices per city, state, and region. As well, the site offers info about their data collection methodology, so you know how they’re finding their results.
The Web has proliferated ridesharing’s popularity.
Craigslist is Mecca for ridesharers. Listed under the Community section for each city, this classifieds site offers a nationwide network for people looking for and offering rides.
Another popular site,eRideshare, is dedicated solely to…you guessed it, ridesharing. This site is nice because there is some accountability, as users must sign up for a free membership before posting on the site. Simply sign up, log in and post your upcoming trip.
While flying can be a cheap way to go for some destinations, ridesharing can save you and the rest of the planet a whole lot of money, time, and resources. Go green, and take your next adventure a la car!
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