Hi all,
We’ll be in NYC for a choir trip just before spring break so are planning to extend and go visit a few schools in the area. Plan is to see NYU, then somehow get out to Vassar and from there drive on to several more (Wesleyan, Rochester, and CWRU) before flying out of Cleveland. The question is where does it make the most sense to pick up a rental car… and how to get there from Manhattan. (Yes, I know I’m relying on no big snowstorms the first week of April to make this work… is this a horrible idea?).
Thanks!
I don’t think it’s a horrible idea. You can pick up rental cars at many Manhattan locations. I would just do that.
You can get to Poughkeepsie by either Amtrak or Metro North. They don’t stop at the same station and I am not certain where they are in relation to each other. You could probably rent a car up there for cheaper than renting in Manhattan and the rental agency might bring the car to you or you could taxi or Uber to the rental place. I would check to make sure there are some, but I would be surprised if there aren’t. The Amtrak trip is more expensive but is shorter. Make sure you check whether or not you can drop the car in another state.
Metro North best means of travel. 1 hour and 50 minutes from Grand Central. Unfortunately the Potown train is on the other side of town. Take a cab or Uber its about a 10 minute ride.
Daily rate renting from Manhattan is probably $10 more than from Poughkeepsie, and additional mileage from Manhattan to Poughkeepsie. However, you will save ride cost from Manhattan to Poughkeepsie, and the inconvenience of hauling your luggage in public transportation. If it were me, I’d just pick up a car when I am done with NYU and Manhattan, pick up a rental at Manhattan then drive to Poughkeepsie. Either way you will have to pay quite a bit with one way rental with all the mileage across these places.
Are you keeping the rental car all the way to Cleveland?
Why not get to CT…take the train to say…New Haven…Uber to a rental car place…and pick up a rental car near there…then continue with the drive to , Wesleyan Vassar, Rochester, Cleveland.
I just did that trip last month. I was planning to take Metro North but the rental car places in Poughkeepsie close too early. I rented from Hertz in the city and it was actually more convenient and cheaper without even using any of my corporate rates. I did a drop off in Albany.
Subway from Penn to Grand Central.
If I pick up in Manhattan I have to drive in Manhattan ;-). Not the biggest problem in the world but my hubby (the usual navigator) won’t be along… it’s just me and the (slightly clueless when it comes to helping with what lane to be in in dense urban traffic) 17 year old.
I do plan to keep the car all the way to Cleveland… I think that would be cheaper than any other way. But I’m from CA where we drive everywhere and trains aren’t really an option so maybe I’m wrong.
What is Potown? Is that short for Poughkeepsie?
You can’t get to Grand Central from Penn directly by subway. You could take the 1,2 or 3 uptown one stop and then transfer to the shuttle or the 7, but that’s a real pain. You could take the A, C or E to 42nd Street but the walk to the 7 or the shuttle is even longer than on the 1, 2 or 3.
What time are you planning to travel? Can you get to Poughkeepsie before the rental place closes?
I rent cars in NYC quite a bit because I gave up my car. I would stay away from Budget because it could take up to an hour for them to get a car to you. It is not that expensive if you rent M-F ($50-60), but on weekends it could be $200/day. My favorite rental is National at the Astor place (8th and Broadway). You could be out of there in 5-10 min and the drop off is very easy too. If you have AmEx you could get Gold status.
If you are driving it all the way to Cleveland it may be cheaper to rent it from an airport, like EWR, and return it to the Cleveland airport. I think it may be expensive to pick up in Manhattan and return it in Cleveland. You will need to check out your options.
I have some flexibility in the travel time right now. The rest of the choir leaves out of EWR on the Monday (4/1) midafternoon and I think we have to travel that far with them (I’m a chaperone so am not really supposed to ditch the group until they are to the security gate). NYU has tours and info sessions with availability at 10am and 1 and 2pm on that Tuesday so I could sign us up for the 10am session and then have a lot of time to get out to Poughkeepsie after. But maybe it makes more sense to go to Wesleyan first? I first mapped this out a few months ago and for some reason I put Vassar first before Wes but now I don’t remember why that was.
Oh actually yes, I do… we weren’t going to tour NYU and I didn’t realize I had to go to the airport with the group, so I thought maybe we could get out to Vassar in time for an afternoon tour on the Monday. But that isn’t part of the plan any more so we could do Wes first if that makes more sense.
If you are ditching touring NYU, why don’t you pick up your rental at EWR? @oldfort would that be a realistic thing to do?
Then…if you are NOT going to NYU…go first to Wesleyan. Then to Vassar. Then to Rochester. Then to Cleveland.
If you can possibly see NYU before heading to EWR, that’s your best bet. Wesleyan is northeast of the city, so I’d then consider renting at EWR, driving across the GW Bridge, then drive to Wesleyan (about two hours from the airport with little traffic). Tour there Tuesday morning, then head west (about 90 minutes) to Poughkeepsie. From there head west to Rochester, then south to CMU and finally west to Cleveland.
@washugrad When I planned our open ended college road trip for D17 a couple of years ago, I was astonished at the variation in pricing for picking up in one location and dropping off at another depending on point of origin. Also some vendors charged very impressive surcharges if you didn’t drop off where you started. In the summer of '16, Alamo was the only major rental company that did not charge extra to drop off elsewhere.
I ended up plugging in sample itineraries on car rentals dot com to determine what will be the most economical point of origin for car pickup. We ended up saving several hundred dollars this way.
Good luck and enjoy! I have fond memories of those road trips.
@thumper1 Sorry for the confusion… we recently added NYU to the mix rather than the other direction (kid was thinking pure math for a while, but now is leaning more toward computer science and/or applied math… and also seems to be more into urban schools). I don’t think I can leave the choir group until they check in at EWR. So assume we are starting from EWR and want to see NYU, Vassar, and Wesleyan, and then go further on to Rochester. I think it makes the most sense to see NYU first but not sure after that.
If you’re doing NYU and don’t want to drive in NYC, then I would take the bus/Uber/PATH back to NYU, then, after your tour, either pick up a car on the west side of Manhattan and head up the West Side Highway (easier to navigate than the east side, I think) to Middletown or jump on a train to Meridien (8 miles to Wesleyan) or New Haven and pick up a car there. My inclination would be to go to the most easternmost school first, then head west.
Another question that just occurred to me - what can we do with luggage while we tour NYU if we’ve checked out of our hotel but haven’t picked up a rental car yet? Do most hotels let you leave your bags there longer? (I remember when we went to NYC a few years ago that the MOMA had a large bag check area… if all else fails maybe we’ll go drop our bags there first 
).
It was probably a bad idea to have my kid look at NYU. LOL. Did I mention that her top school so far (on paper only… this is based on a few personal rankings out of the Princeton guide) is UC Santa Cruz… which is less than 2 hours’ drive from home and in-state tuition… and actually ranks quite well for computer science…
We’re from CA too (but I grew up in NYC) and last summer we did something like this with my younger daughter. We were in NYC for a few days with husband on a business trip and toured Barnard, NYU and then went on to Vassar (I’m an alum there). We had tickets to the theater so we were taking a very late train from NY to Poughkeepsie. We left our luggage at the hotel but then had to go pick it up at 10:30 pm and get to Grand Central. A bit crazy but it worked. Then we took a taxi from the train station to the Alumnae House where we stayed, toured Vassar the next morning and then got a car from Enterprise. From Vassar we drove to a few more schools over a few more days and dropped the car off in Cambridge and flew home from Boston. I don’t recall it being exorbitant to do that. We used Enterprise in Poughkeepsie and they came and picked us up at Vassar after the tour.
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out where we could leave luggage in NY after checking out of hotel. Can’t bring it to the theater, there are no longer lockers at Grand Central, and I’d be surprised if you could bring it to a museum - all the public spaces are concerned about security. There were some luggage storage places through a website that I’ve forgotten, they were places like tourist shops with hours that varied. And one place in the west 40s I think that was a standalone place. But since the hotel would keep it we decided to just do that.
I agree that if you have to go to EWR with the group, it would definitely be better if you can to see NYU before going to EWR - going back into the city would be a hassle and doesn’t sound like you’d get back in time for a tour anyway. If you rent a car at EWR I’m not sure where it makes sense to go first from there, but seems like others have given their thoughts.