When we bought the Winnie we traded both our truck and travel trailer, bringing us down to a one car family (well, two if you count the Winnie.) We decided to give it a season of camping before making any sort of decision on replacing the second car for commuting. Since our car is a Honda Insight hybrid, it isn’t towable 4 down, so we wanted to see if we wanted to look for something 4 down towable as a second car. We’ve carpooled in the past and decided to do it again for the summer while we determined our needs.
After a season we decided that we don’t need a toad vehicle. If we were fulltiming, sure, but for our weekend and vacation travels it just isn’t worth it to get a towable car, tow setup, brake system, etc. Depending on where we are at and what we are doing we either ride bikes or walk, rent a car from Enterprise (the bonus is that Theo loves checking out new cars), or just drive the Winnie if we need to go somewhere. We’ve also called a cab once – but that proved to be about the same price as getting a rental car for a day.
And in case you care, the carpooling schedule got a little tricky for a bit last summer so I decided to look into taking the bus for a few days. Lo and behold, the city bus that stops at the end of our street goes downtown, a stop right across from my office! It turns out I really enjoy taking the bus – I get 45 minutes of reading and coffee-sipping time each way, so nice! Yes, a little longer commute than when I drove in, but I’m loving the reading time and I’m saving almost $100 a month in the parking contract alone. Plus, the boys got me a nifty Kindle Paperwhite for Christmas, so I am happy as a clam. Yes, there have been a few times where we need a second car for a day or two to cover weird appointment or meeting schedules, but in those cases we turn again to Enterprise. We’re still way ahead of paying for a second car, insurance, taxes, gas, parking, etc…and we get to feel pretty green to offset the mpg we get on the Winnie ;)
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