Southwest location without the rental car
 

So this is kinda crazy question, I was planning a trip to BOS - PWM in July. Because of the crazy rental car price, I'm looking to go somewhere else. I need some SW location suggestions that does not require a rental car. Any help? (Beside Chicago, DC, and NYC)

Thanks

Uber & Lyft

There are lots of options where the airport has good light rail or other public transit service: MSP, SFO, OAK, STL, SEA, PHL, to name a few. In some cities Uber and Lyft are terribly expensive and require long waits, so we have typically used public transport instead; works really well!

If you ONLY want public transportation, the options get tight.

But - using Uber Lyft opens up LOTS of places.

Clearwater Beach you can take uber and lyft from tpa but like most tourist destinations the hotel prices are insane currently.

Nashville has an awesome downtown. Lots of great food, live music, and quality hotels, and tons of Southwest flights in and out. Uber/Lyft to downtown is about $40.

Las Vegas is another great choice. Things are opening up, lots of shuttle options to get to the entertainment areas, and the tram system just reopened a few days ago. Even more than Nashville, it's another city with lots of Southwest flights in and out.

on rental cars...the smaller airports with summer tourists have the high rental car costs. If you look at larger citues the rates aren’t as high. They also fluctuate.

for example I travelled this weekend to buffalo and saw crazy high prices. About 2 weeks before they dropped to more reasonable rates in part because of multiple car booking clean up.

citues you don’t need a rental for outside of airport to hotel.

nashville
Atlanta ( some areas are served by light rail)
Denver ( light rail from airport)
las vegas
LA...light rail I don’t think it’s a direct connection to lax
San Diego..there light rail doesn’t get to airport there might be a shuttle.
portland light rail from airport
San Francisco or oakland light rail from airport. Oakland has a pay bus to Bart station. Some airport hotels run shuttle to both.
seattle light rail from airport
baltimire...has a light rail system and a MARC train from bwi to downtown dc and baltimore
Philadelphia has a line from airport to downtown
Minneapolis iirc has airport access
dallas has a limited light rail system but serves love
Ft Lauderdale
orlando...staying at Disney or universal. There is a bus line that gets you around universal-sea world- Orange County convention center
tampa
new orleans
maui you don’t need a car rental.

Not a crazy question at all - we've been booking the same way for months. So far we've done DC, Nashville, NYC, and San Francisco. We have San Diego in a couple weeks, then a single night with single day car rental to Buffalo to go see Niagara. Later we have Denver, Seattle, and Portland... We're paying out the ... for a Yellowstone/Glacier rental, but otherwise it'll be an urban summer. When car rental rates are $100+ a day, I'll happily take an Uber into a city and walk off all the food and drink.

Just got back from a weekend in PWM and didn’t rent a car. Easily doable with uber. If you’re physically fit, renting a bicycle is an even better way to see the area.

I'm doing the same thing, adjusting to cities that don't require a rental car. For example, I went to Fort Myers right before things really got nuts on rental car rates, I don't think I'd go there again now as that city is pretty spread out. But other places I've been to or plan to go to (Nashville, Las Vegas, Chicago, Ft Lauderdale, Miami, Orlando) all are fine without one. I do have tentative trips to Denver and St Louis and those are cities I'm not sure I'll be able to do much without a rental car.. it's too bad that makes those trips tentative for that reason only!

Honolulu/Waikiki. Very walkable and the island has a decent bus system for other tourist destinations.

Our nephew's family could not get a Lyft ride from near downtown LA to LAX a week ago in the early morning. A 20 minute wait turned into a subsequent 20 minute estimated wait. They had to bail out and drive their car to the airport and park there.

The critical path to all budget travel planning now is ground transportation.

Where Denver is concerned, I think you'd be fine unless you have specific plans outside the city that are not well served by public transportation. A few of our favorite hikes are inconvenient (require an Uber/Lyft) via train, and we still don't bother to rent a car - even with normal prices. The lightrail is reasonably priced and very convenient, the 16th St Mall free shuttle covers downtown proper very well, and the city/regional public transportation isn't half bad.

If you find Miami/Ft Lauderdale to be convenient without a rental car, I feel pretty confident you'll be fine in Denver.

I wouldn't call MIA/FLL convenient, but its doable for a short trip where you just want to sit on the beach at a nearby hotel. In some ways, especially in MIA, a car is a pain with parking, etc. Thanks for the tips re: Denver. It'd be a short trip so I can probably pick and choose things that are conveniently located. I also have a friend in the area, so I think a lot of us are leaning on friends around the country until rental car prices return back to normal!

Thank all for the info. For STL, I guess we need to define no rental car as walk/bike or Uber. In STL, you can Uber all days without rental car is fine, but for just walking/bike it might be tough. And it is 100% worse in the summer.

Might I ask, where did you stay? Do you have more info about bike rental? I might have to change my plan to visit PWM only for the weekend, instead of driving from BOS/PVD to PWM