Cheap road trip?

July 14, 2005 10:53 AM

I heard that every year RVs need to be taken from Los Angeles to Alaska, or the other way around.

My details on this are VERY sketchy, but someone once told me that someone told them that there are people who need their RVs taken either up or down the west coast. You may have to pay for the gas, but since they need the vehicle a few thousand miles away they don't charge you for a rental.

I've googled and checked out Yahoo. It does seem too good to be true, has anyone ever heard of anything like this? I'm obviously missing the pertinent details but any clues would help a lot.

It's possible that it happens once a year, like they need the RVs in Alaska by June 1 or something, but I'm not sure.

posted by mike_bling to travel & transportation (6 comments total)

I know that my dad once paid a one armed man to drive his 45 foot Holiday Rambler from Virginia to Salt Lake. My dad then flew to Salt Lake and drove it up to Alaska. There is definitely a market for this. I don't know if there are brokers who deal in this or what. You might be able to just send flyers to RV places around the country and get some jobs that way. I don't know how much he paid the guy either though. And you should probably have your CDL or something.
posted by trbrts at 11:31 AM on July 14, 2005

You might searching for "Driveaway". I used this service to have my car driven from Montreal to Vancouver a few years back. Most major cities have a business along these lines and I'd imagine they deal with RVs as well as cars.
posted by Cuke at 1:46 PM on July 14, 2005

Might try searching, that is...
posted by Cuke at 1:47 PM on July 14, 2005

I met a man who worked full time doing RV deliveries for one of the RV manufacturers. Maybe he was pulling my leg, but his story seemed believable as he told it to me on the Greyhound.

He had been a truck driver, but liked delivering RVs better. The pay was worse, but the stress and the lifestyle was better. He lived in the town where the RVs were made, and then he'd drive them to the people who'd ordered them.

I don't remember his name, nor do I remember which company he worked for. He did tell me about getting an article written about himself in the Boston Globe, however, because he would stop at towns along the way and do Jazzercize in order to stay in shape. This was sometime between 1998 and 2000, I believe.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 2:49 PM on July 14, 2005

The June deadline was because of the state dividend check, and the RVs were packed full of marijuana.
posted by ikkyu2 at 10:08 PM on July 14, 2005

Yes, search for "driveaway" services in your Yellow Pages as cuke suggests. This is pretty common in major U.S. cities -- some friends of mine ferried vehicles over several summers as a cheap way to get from one place to another.
posted by killdevil at 10:29 PM on July 14, 2005