Trip to Florida wrap-up and the cost savings analysis of renting
Posted By RichC on March 11, 2012
After the long overnight drive home here’s a wrap up post from my trip to Florida with my son Taylor over his college spring break. We had a mostly great father-son time and I for one was glad he chose to spent the week with me rather than other friends or SigEp fraternity brothers – 
no offense intended towards the college spring break crowd of this generation (or previous); and before chastising my opinion, wait and revisit this subject when you become a parent. 
Anyway, I did my obsessive compulsion of analyzing the cost of the trip using the comfortable (although underpowered) Ford Focus rental car compared to driving my Honda Pilot, as mention in a previous post. I adjusted the spreadsheet with the overall gas prices a bit higher for the trip and found that we saved a few more dollars. In fact, according to even the simplest calculations … which didn’t take into account tire wear, maintenance, mileage depreciation or potential repairs on my Honda Pilot … we saved $50 by renting for the week over driving the Honda. It is surprising what a 12mpg improvement can make in a 2600 mile trip. I acknowledge that I may have giving up a little over the road comfort, but not having to clean the sand out of my car was a big plus too. One caveat to renting is that I had to do all the driving due to rental restrictions … so be aware.
While reviewing the photos on my phone, I remembered how impress I was over the beach access on Hutchinson Island next to the Navy Seal museum. We enjoyed the sand and sunshine here and appreciated not having to feed a meter. The all teak walk over was impressive as were the super clean bathrooms (for beach restrooms) that even had a mural painted on the wall! Let’s just hope they can keep those who disrespect nice facilities away and keep it nice for the rest of us … I for one plan on encouraging public enforcement by being more aggressive with hoodlums — approach verbally when possible … and “photographically” (faces and license plates) when that’s not the wisest. If the public could be encouraged to be more involved (and law enforcement/courts stood behind them), I think much of the vandalism expense could be thwarted. [/off_soapbox]
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