Renting a Car in the Midnight Sun

[canyonwalker]

This weekend I clicked into the place the final piece of our travel arrangements for visiting Alaska next month. I booked a rental car. I slept on doing this for a few weeks because prices with all the conventional car rental agencies (Avis, Hertz, et. al.) were absurd. Like, $1,000 for a 5-day rental absurd. Instead I booked with Turo, a C2C car rental arranger. Turo is like AirBnB for car rental.

I slept on booking with Turo for two weeks because I had doubts about how well it works. For example, our flight to Anchorage arrives at 11pm. We'd want to pick up the car around 11:30. But would a private owner be able to complete a business transaction at that hour? Ultimately the price difference was compelling— it's less than half the (huge) cost of a conventional rental, though for an older/smaller car— so I took the plunge and clicked "Buy".

The service suggested as my next step I install the app on my phone and message the car owner. "Hmm, good idea," I thought. I messaged the owner about the 11:30pm thing, explaining that if the late-night hour didn't work I could pick up the car early the next morning as we'd be staying in Anchorage that night.

"No problem with 11:30," she explained. The car would parked on a public street and have some kind of lock-box for me to get the key. "And the sun doesn't really set, so at 11:30pm you'll still be able to take pictures of the car."

Oookay, I wasn't expecting that, but it makes sense. Now I'm really looking forward to this trip into the land of the midnight sun!

Comments

[sorcyress]

I've used Turo many times, to great success! I feel complicated about it in the same way I do AirBnB (ie, I would like it better if it weren't so many people buying multiple extra cars to rent instead of just renting their own personal car when they're not using it) but it's been alright besides that.

~Sor

[canyonwalker]

I'm glad to get a recommendation from someone who's used Turo. Thanks for that. Like you, I've already been a bit suspicious about what seem to be professional carlords. Like, are you renting me a spare car you happen to own to supplement your income, or have you purchased a small fleet of vehicles to run a business via Turo?