<p>Haven’t read all the posts but I do know that one way rentals are the biggest pain in the butt. I have learned that you need to rent at an airport and return to an airport. Good luck.</p>
<p>If you must store a sofa, desk, dresser, chairs wrap each fully in plastic drop cloths and buy cinder blocks to elevate them off the storage space floor. Same with boxes, wrap and elevate, flooding happens. Mold and mildew will ruin everything.</p>
<p>Airports in my experience are not necessary for rental drop offs and pick ups. But sometimes they work out better. I used to do this when my S went to Pitt. Drive to the northern Chicago suburbs, train to the city, Amtrak to Pittsburgh. Go out to Pittsburgh airport, rent van, pack van, drive to Chicago where my car was parked, return rental van-Hertz to suburban location. It was a little cheaper at OHare, but the parking was FAR more expensive. </p>
<p>I’ve done lots of one way rentals. It is more available as an option to check on the websites than it used to be. Recently I rented a car in Scottsdale, AZ and returned to the airport. Renting away from the airport was over $100 cheaper than in the airport, and in that case, airport drop off was no extra charge. But PHX has outrageous airport car rental taxes.</p>
<p>Also did downtown Portland to Seatac in the last year, worked out ok. I think it was Budget that time. </p>
<p>If Amtrak is on your route, the charges for shipping large volumes of good with a paying passenger are minimal. I think up to 5 pieces, some with an extra fee.</p>
<p>As we have been experiencing this for the past four years (our student will be graduating in May), and having an 11+ hour drive one way, I can tell you that storage is the best way to go. Even if you end up having to store by yourself, it is still cheaper than one way car rentals. But, if storage is the route you take, you would be wise to firm up those plans soon. Depending on the college town, storage units can go quickly. We were never able to find a one way car rental that was reasonable! This May, we intend to drive up for graduation, rent a small U-Haul trailer and drive it one way home. Then in order to assist our student with move to new city for new job, we will again do a one-way trailer. If you can find a one-way car rental that is inexpensive, let me know…some companies we talked to would not even consider it. Good Luck!</p>
<p>If she is returning to the same school, I would agree that you should look into storing as much as possible. Then fly Southwest…both ways. Each of you will have two large suitcases if you do this.</p>
<p>Our kiddo goes to college on the opposite coast. She stored most of her stuff in CA for the summer after freshman year. She flew home on SW with two suitcases…and had more than enough room for what she needed for the summer (and some stuff she didn’t take back). The reality is…we were thrilled…we didn’t have her stuff decorating our LIVING ROOM all summer. And we didn’t have to figure out a way to get it all BACK to the school in the fall…it was mostly there.</p>
<p>I have done this with Hertz & Enterprise. We live in the Midwest and our son goes to school in NY. We live about 2 1/2 hrs. from a large city/major airport. Any local rental companies did not offer unlimited mileage. So we had to return it to the airport. There was a drop off fee, but it was significantly less than gas, hotel and meals for the trip there.</p>