We do not plan to rent a car. We will take the limo (van) from the airport. (DS offered to give us a ride from the airport to the school (albeit quite far in our standard) and my wife said no.)
We will later take a bus from the school, when we need to travel from one city to another, likely by bus. But after that, we will likely hail a taxi.
We may or may not get rid of (i.e., sell) a car. A car may need a long term parking space in the destination city, if he decides to keep the car. It will be difficult to sell a car within a short time. We (at least me) hope he could keep it because he will need it sooner or later. It is a reliable car; it is a pity to sell it (are we emotionally/sentimentally attached to that car? I think we are.) If he does not want to keep the car, we do not want to ship the car back home (then, to which home – who knows, we ourselves may move in a few months or half a year.)
Oh, boy, a lot of logistics of the moving/relocation have not been figured out or decided yet. I think a moving company will likely be needed for moving a lot of stuff (but it is likely not up to us to decide.) It is not a luggage size issue only but we start from this simple problem.
For the cost of 2 people to take an airport bus or taxi, would it be a better value proposition to rent a car and get a comfortable cheaper hotel room further out?
Also, with a rental car, you could stop by a walmart/kmart and just buy stuff there (e.g., an inflatable mattress), and save yourself the trouble of hauling it. Rental car also facillitates more options for restaurants.
Ah, but one must be comfortable driving in and navigating a new area. Some folks really aren’t comfortable.
Personally, we usually do rent a car, except for cities that have great mass transit. Using GPS or smart phones makes getting around much easier than when we tried finding our way with a map. It’s gotten to the point that I can drive alone on LA freeways with some confidence, tho I prefer to be the navigator in big cities and let someone else drive.
Sometimes, we do splurge and rent a place walking distance of where we want to be and then save by not needing a car. It also allows us to spend less time and energy driving around.