Commuting tips / on orders out of state

[rancormac]

In the future, I'll be full time at my unit for a few months for deployment spin up, but will be coming from across the country.  Different than just the UTA + some AFTP days once a month, where hotel provided and rental car is a cheap cost.

I should have lodging provided as I'll be outside commuting distance.. any tips on car?  Or other tips in general on being outside commuting distance for 2-3 months?  I also plan on cancelling my lease out of state to save on rental payments.

Thanks

[nsplayr]

I bought a beater / old man car (2004 Buick Lesabre) and parked it on base for over a year when I was drilling at a unit > 1K miles from my home with the intention of also using it there while I attended IQT for 3-4 months.

Plans changed, I changed units, and I never attended that training, but I sold the car for almost exactly what I paid so other than some minor repairs, gas and an oil change I wasn't out much money. YMMV but that was my plan at least.

Later on with my new unit, I was TDY for ~9 months for training. For that I just drove my POV from my home to each of the training sites and that worked out well other than choosing to drive a V8 truck 50 miles per day 5 days a week in California when gas was like $4.25 a gallon haha. #ShouldHaveBoughtAPrius #NotReally

Can you just bring a POV if it's a continuous 2-3 months? Not sure how far the initial haul is, but I drove from TN to TX, then CA, then all the way back. Since I was TDY Uncle Sam paid the milage and I had travel days allocated so it worked out fine. I had finance help me out with a cost comparison worksheet in DTS that showed that a rental car for > 100 days would cost a bazillion dollars so POV milage was by far advantageous to the government.

Edited July 14, 2020 by nsplayr