Rental Cars in Boise More Expensive Than Plane Tickets?

Renting a car for a summer road trip may be more of a task (and more expensive) than you originally planned. My advice - good luck!

I was planning on taking a trip in a couple of weeks to Salt Lake City. I thought it would probably be cheaper to drive and didn't want to put any extra miles on my car so I planned to rent a car for the weekend. Yeah...SIKE!

Boise is not exempt from the nationwide rental car shortage. After doing some basic research on Kayak, the cheapest economy rental car listed for the weekend of August 13th - 15th was $234 total. That's only $25 cheaper than a roundtrip plane ticket to Salt Lake City and that's not including gas.

Rental cars in Boise right now are on average going for $150 a day. Which is truly insane when you think about it. According to a travel writer from The Points Guy blog, $150 is a pretty common price these days compared to in 2019 when a basic car might have rented for $50 per day.

Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana are a few locations reportedly being hit hard by the shortage. As more and more people are flying into the national parks they're in need of rental cars. For some dates, Idaho rental companies are completely sold out of cars.

You may want to rethink that road trip this summer if you planned to rent a car to do so. Surprisingly, flying might actually be the easier and less expensive option depending on where and when you are going, so double check that first!