How to Take a Road Trip with a Colorado CarShare Car
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Welcome to How You Got There, a Colorado Car Share podcast exploring the intersection of adventure, regular everyday life and transportation through the stories of our fellow Coloradans. Is this your first time learning about Colorado car share and wondering how it works? Drivers in good standing apply for membership and choose a subscription plan based on their driving needs.
Members are then able to preserve cars that are located through the Denver and Boulder metro area and Summit County members pay only for the time and mileage usage during each driving session. That’s it. Don’t have a CAR RA one car family and would like additional access to a car without the monthly expenses.
Colorado car share may be the right fit for you. Go to: https://carshare.org to learn more.
While I love being car free-one of the most frustrating aspects of car free life is not being able to go on a road trip. I live in Colorado. That’s just one of those things you really enjoy doing. Fortunately, as a Colorado Car Share member, I’m able to explore the state and points beyond using.
The Colorado CarShare Service summer and fall are the times of year that I love heading out for a road trip adventure across the state. Right now, I’m working on where I would like to go this summer. If you’re new to Colorado CarShare or haven’t gone on a road trip using this service, I wanted to share some of my best tips for planning a road trip this summer.
As a carshare member. Before I do, I wanted to share what makes me a semi expert in road tripping. As a Colorado Car Share member, I’ve gone on a number of different road trips ranging from heading down to Sida for a couple of days, enjoying a camping trip at Great Sand Dunes National Park. And I even went down to Taos in Santa Fe for a week for a random modeling gig with Kelty.
I’m being really serious. That really happened and one of my absolute favorite road trips was heading down to Telluride for a long weekend. When planning your road trip as a car share member, there are a few things to keep in mind though. The first is you do have to be a member in good standing. It just is what it is.
It’s not quite as spontaneous as waking up jumping in your car and hitting the road. There are a couple of important steps that you need to take before you head out on your adventure. First, check out the Road Trip calculator to help you price the cost of your road trip. If you’re unfamiliar with the Colorado Car share Roadtrip calculator, go to the following link to check it out.
It’s https://carshare.org/individual-rates. Forward slash trip dash calculator. I’ve actually included this link in the show notes. The cool thing about the trip calculator is that it really helps you gauge how much you’re gonna end up paying for the trip, so it’s really helpful. The next step is to reserve the right car for the type of trip you’re going on.
My road trips almost always include some mountain driving, so I have to keep that in mind. But more often than not, you’ll find me heading south on US 2 85, which is a pretty flat and easy road to drive also. Very beautiful. So I typically reserve the same type of car for the trips that I’m doing. Love the car that I use.
When you reserve the car, depending on the length of the trip, you may need to connect with the team to complete your reservation. So if you are heading down, I think it’s like for more than three days, like a four day trip, that will automatically trigger a reach out from the team to kind of walk you through that.
So just be aware of it. Be prepared to pay upfront for the bulk of the cost of the trip. When making your reservation, I actually love this because it helps me to better manage the overall expense of the trip. When I pick up the car, I make sure to walk around it, make sure everything looks right, and I would recommend that you leave maybe an hour earlier than you originally planned.
And the reason why is in the event that there’s an issue with the car, you can manage having to change the car or whatever you need to do and still be on the schedule that you’ve set. It’s happened to me before, so I do recommend this. I always pick up the car first, then I return home to get my luggage.
Don’t forget, and this is just like what you would do anyway. Fill up the tank and then head on out. If you’re using an EV vehicle, an all electric vehicle. I’m actually recording a totally different episode about that. I feel like there’s some additional things to consider. I’ve taken a road trip with it all, EV and it was very interesting.
So, uh, it was wonderful. But there were some interesting things that I learned about myself and road tripping with the ev. Finally, do not forget to download your favorite music. I keep making this mistake. There are a couple of points along the road where. Spotify just is gone. There’s no reception, so I’m making sure to remind myself to download my favorite music so that I don’t have issues moving forward.
Now that the boring logistics are out of the way, I thought I would share some of the trips that I’m thinking about taking in 2025 during the summer or fall. This is my summer, fall road tripping season. There’s so much of the state that I still haven’t explored and would like to visit. I’ve been to a lot.
Of areas around the state. I grew up here, but I’m still amazed by the places that I haven’t been to before. The following three places that I’m gonna share with you might surprise you. They still surprise me. So the first trip I would love to go on, I would love to visit Pagosa Springs. I can’t believe I’ve never been there before.
If you’re unfamiliar with Pagosa Springs, it is also the home of the world’s deepest hot springs, which kind of freaks me out a little bit. I feel like I don’t hear this talking point enough in marketing about the state of Colorado, but I am very excited to go check it out. I would like to, so in the hot springs hike around the area and just.
Enjoy a great meal. I think it would be a wonderful experience. I’ve only heard good things. The next trip would be to Durango. I’ve never visited Durango as an adult. I feel like I was there as a child, but it’s been so long I don’t remember. And again, I find it really surprising, but I just haven’t had the opportunity to visit.
And the last time I was that. Far south. I was in the Telluride area this year. I think it’s time to go to Durango instead. And then finally, this trip is my dream trip. Actually. I would love to visit White Sands in New Mexico, white Sands National Park. This is a road trip that I’ve been thinking about for years and years and years, and it’s just time to make it happen.
While I absolutely love driving through New Mexico, it’s like one of my absolute favorite states. I will never drive across the state at night again, never again. They should give the state a dark sky designation. I’m being very serious about this. There’s very little light pollution, so it was a little intense driving at night from one city to the next in New Mexico it was just so dark, but you could see the sky.
So it’s beautiful. Once my road trip is over, I do a few final things. I. They’re important. Again, I double check that the car is in good condition. I make sure to report anything that I find unusual. If there are any lights that have lit up on the console, just making sure that the team knows what’s going on with the car.
I make sure that I fill the gas. I. It’s a good way to be a good community member. You have to fill the tank if it’s below half a tank of gas anyway. But even if it isn’t, I usually will fill it up before I return it. And if the car is dirty, I always stop by Waterworks on second and Broadway to get the car washed and detailed before dropping it off at the location that the car lives at.
Colorado CarShare has an account with Waterworks, I mean, it’s a branded car, so they’re used to people saying. Hi. I would like to get the car washed and detailed with the Colorado CarShare account. They know what you mean and they’ll know inside Waterworks when you’re paying for it.
Don’t forget to bring cash to Tip the team. Once they are done. I forgot the last time and I felt really badly about it. That’s it. Those are my tips for taking a road trip with a Colorado car share car. It’s so much fun. I can’t wait for the summer. And I have one last thing to ask you.
Have you ever wanted to take home a spaceship? I’m not crazy. Well, our awesome EVs are the closest thing to it, and now for a limited time, you can rent one for a month. Or two on the cheap. For a limited time qualified members with a good track record can rent a Colorado CarShare electric vehicle monthly for 500 down, plus a $500 month fee for up to two months at a time.
Learn more by reaching out to the Colorado Car Share team for more information and just. Availability and what the expectations are. If you’ve been wanting to test out an ev, maybe there’s a purchase in your future or you just, this is the way you would like to travel and you don’t want to do individual reservations, I would highly recommend checking this out.
Email us at: [email protected] for more details.
Don’t forget to take pictures of your adventures with your Colorado CarShare car and tag us on Instagram, or whichever social media platform is your favorite. Where are you thinking about road tripping this year? Let us know.
