Moving cross-country in an RV (Scio: rentals, insurance, hotel)

[Ms_Christina]

Has anyone moved across the country in an RV?

We have a moving budget of $6K. I'm thinking of letting a moving company take care of the stuff and cars and taking the 1 year old and cats in an RV as opposed to flying and paying for pet transport.

Anyone have experience?

[Larry Caldwell]

Do you already own the RV? I didn't know there were any companies that would do one way RV rentals.

Let us know how this works out.

[Ms_Christina]

I found a few companies that do one way rentals. I'm getting quotes. I'll post what I find out.

[Nell Plotts]

I don't think it will be as cheap as you hope. Often a cat can ride in a carrier under your seat in an aircraft.

[Ms_Christina]

Yes, it is one cat per person, However, it is just my husband, me, my 1 year old and 3 cats. I would have to find two people to fly with me and pay their airfair, hotel, etc...

The pet transport service I found is $3000 for the 3 cats.

CruiseAmerica's one way rental is about $3200 + ~$1000 in gas. Just waiting on some more quotes so we can compare apples to apples

[JIer]

We're looking at doing it that way too with CruiseAmerica - driving their smallest RV. We consolidated to one car in preparation for the move, so we were planning on towing it. It will be me, my husband, our not-yet-born 9 mo old, our 2 dogs, and 1 cat. I hadn't called for a quote yet because we still have 11 months until we move. CruiseAmerica was the only place we found oneway rentals from our area, so we don't really have other RV options. Which model were you looking at?

[Ms_Christina]

We're looking at the standard. We considered towing our smaller car (Toyota Scion) but you have to purchase your own tow bar, pay extra, and the insurance and liability does not cover anything you decide to tow. So it is actually coming out safer and cheaper to have the moving company take both cars with them.

[Nell Plotts]

Originally Posted by Ms_Christina

Yes, it is one cat per person, However, it is just my husband, me, my 1 year old and 3 cats. I would have to find two people to fly with me and pay their airfair, hotel, etc...

The pet transport service I found is $3000 for the 3 cats.

CruiseAmerica's one way rental is about $3200 + ~$1000 in gas. Just waiting on some more quotes so we can compare apples to apples

That is a different senario than I was picturing. Three cats & a 1 yo?? RV makes sense to me. Keep in mind that cats are very anxious when moved and may scoot. The other issue is cat odor at the end of the trip. Just saying...

[Ms_Christina]

True Nell. There is a lot to take into consideration.

[JIer]

Their pet policy is actually pretty good - if unit is not in the same condition as when it was rented (so if you couldn't clean it well enough), there is a cleaning fee of up to $250. That's not a bad price, especially for multiple animals. Obviously we're going to do our best to keep it clean, but it won't be looming over us the whole time.
Yeah, I think we're going to try to get the Compact so it's a little less intimidating to drive! We're going to take about 2 weeks to make the trip and do some exploring along the way. I've driven across the country 5 times for moves (always with just a car) but I think we'll get to make the most detours this time with the freedom of the RV. We're really looking forward to it, making it more of an adventure than just a move.
We haven't looked into the additional cost of towing our car vs shipping it yet. Because we're taking a while to get out there towing might work better since the car would get there before we would.
Where are you moving from?