Travel to CO from GA / NJ

[Bubdog]

Next year a friend and I are traveling from GA and NJ out to Colorado for a drop camp hunt (we grew up together in GA and now he lives in NJ). We plan to meet in KY and then head to CO. We are looking for a solution to our travel problem. We both have high mileage personal trucks that we use for hunting and errands on the weekend. We don't feel comfortable driving our personal trucks out to CO. During the week we both have company trucks that we are unable to use for a trip such as this.

Has anyone rented a truck or van for a trip like this? IF you have - were there any lessons learned or things you would do different?

We will be hunting in unit #84, near Colorado City.

Thanks

 

[cnelk]

What season?

 

[Backwoods89]

If you are doing a drop camp, a mini van would probably do just fine getting to where you need to go. Maybe a family member or friend of one of you has one you could borrow, or shop around closer to your hunt for a rental from either of your locations to see whats the better deal.

 

[Farmingdale's Finest]

I drove from NJ to steamboat springs Colorado to do a DIY archery hunt this year. It was 4300 miles round trip. If you are both coming from different t areas of the country and doing a drop camp that means you don’t have to bring as much as a DIY hunt. I would suggest flying to Denver renting a truck or van and driving to you destination. Then if you are successful have the meat shipped home. It will be far less wear and tear on vehicles as well as your bodies.


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[N2TRKYS]

Fly to Denver and rent a vehicle. Rent vehicle to drive home, if successful.

 

[Quackshack]

This past year by brother and I flew from Baltimore to Denver 1 way. Bought a truck off craigslist, killed a bull, and drove home. Sold the truck when we got home. It worked perfectly. But alot could have gone wrong. Adds more adventure to the hunt!

 

[jmez]

This past year by brother and I flew from Baltimore to Denver 1 way. Bought a truck off craigslist, killed a bull, and drove home. Sold the truck when we got home. It worked perfectly. But alot could have gone wrong. Adds more adventure to the hunt!

That's awesome!

 

[barrister]

My brother and I just did this very thing last week for a mule deer hunt in Colorado . We are both in Ohio. In the past, we have flown for hunting trips to Wyoming and New Mexico. We rented a Tahoe and it was a nice vehicle. Very roomy, comfortable and smooth to drive. We had plenty of room for coolers, gear, etc. It made hauling two muleys back very easy.

While it certainly takes longer than flying, it is lessened when you add in the trip to the airport, security and check-in, flight time, connections, picking up a rental car at the destination airport and then a drive to the actual hunting site. For us, it takes an hour drive to get to the local airport in Ohio and we would have had a 4 hour drive to the hunting site from Denver. The total drive was 17 hours and we did it on our schedule, not the airlines.

I looked at the drive as part of the adventure. It kind of felt like I was back in college (which sadly was 25 years ago). We got to see new country or revisit areas we hadn't seen in years. We also had plenty of time to talk and "hang out". Having the vehicle with us also gave us flexibility to run some errands and take care of details after we harvested our animals and before we headed for home.

I do suggest getting a big vehicle to make it worth your while on multiple fronts (including leg room for pulling over to catch some sleep as needed). Having satellite radio is paramount in my opinion because it adds so much entertainment value for sporting events, talk radio, consistent music of any genre. Finally, I do suggest paying for the insurance coverage if your personal insurance does not cover a rental vehicle. Factor that as part of the trip expense and it's better than ruining a trip due to some cosmetic issue with the vehicle.

Based on our experience, unless it's for something further west than Wyoming/Colorado/New Mexico, I don't think we'll fly again for a big game trip.

 

[Bubdog]

What season?

We are going second archery.

Thanks for all the replies!

 

[HairyScandinavian]

This past year by brother and I flew from Baltimore to Denver 1 way. Bought a truck off craigslist, killed a bull, and drove home. Sold the truck when we got home. It worked perfectly. But alot could have gone wrong. Adds more adventure to the hunt!

lmao that's wild

 

[zm378205]

Where you're hunting it might be beneficial to fly into either Denver or CO Springs as others have said and then rent a truck from there as others have stated. This could save you some travel time driving, and then if/when you fill your tag you drive back or catch a flight. This would make coordination a little easier with you coming from different states.

 

[Jorge400]

Fly to Denver and rent a vehicle. Rent vehicle to drive home, if successful.

We did this last week. Flew to Denver, rented a truck for the hunt and decided to drive back to ATL. HOWEVER, don't just assume you can drive a rental vehicle to a different location if you have not already arranged to do so. They wanted a drop fee of about $2,000 to bring the truck back to Atlanta. They want their 4x4s out there for the winter. We arranged to trade it for a minivan but the girl at checkout wanted a picture with my bull and upgraded us to a full size SUV (2wd).

I realize this won't work for your situation since y'all are coming from 2 different locations. Others may want to consider this though.

 

[N2TRKYS]

We did this last week. Flew to Denver, rented a truck for the hunt and decided to drive back to ATL. HOWEVER, don't just assume you can drive a rental vehicle to a different location if you have not already arranged to do so. They wanted a drop fee of about $2,000 to bring the truck back to Atlanta. They want their 4x4s out there for the winter. We arranged to trade it for a minivan but the girl at checkout wanted a picture with my bull and upgraded us to a full size SUV (2wd).

I realize this won't work for your situation since y'all are coming from 2 different locations. Others may want to consider this though.

They wanted a $700 drop off fee for a 4 door Wrangler. I got online and rented a larger SUV from the same rental company(same location) for less than $200 total. The guy told me, no we want to keep our 4x4s here. The one I drove to Memphis was a 4x4. SMH

 

[CJohnson]

We drove from SC to CO and rented a 15 passenger van. Took the back two seats out. Plenty of room for gear and two people to sleep while two people stayed up to drive. It was kind of expensive, but probably about the same as a round trip airline ticket.

 

[Sako76]

I drove out on two separate trips from New Jersey to Wyoming and two weeks later Colorado in a 2018 Ford F-150. I killed two bull elk, the Wyoming trip was uneventful, the return trip from Colorado was 2000 miles in snow and high wind, white knuckle all the way and I ate something bad in Nebraska and that didn't help. I put over 8K miles on a new truck (bought as a leftover in April), it now has 28K miles on it. On the bright side, I didn't have to deal with the a$$holes on United and TSA plus I bought a whole bunch of extra stuff (which I mostly didn't use). I bought all my meat and antlers home and took out 3 rifles all in separate hard cases! The only thing I wish was I had a second driver.