One-Way RV Rentals: The Reality Check

The Dream vs The Math

The fantasy is beautiful: pick up an RV in San Francisco, meander through the national parks, drop it off in New York City. Coast to coast, no backtracking, pure freedom.

The reality is that one-way RV rentals are the single most complicated and expensive way to rent an RV, and the industry has very good reasons for making it that way. Here's what you need to know before you plan around a one-way trip.

Why One-Way Is So Expensive

An RV rental company's business model depends on vehicles being where the customers are. When you drive a motorhome from Denver to Miami, that company now has to get it back to Denver — either by paying someone to drive it back (deadhead cost), shipping it on a transport truck, or waiting until someone books a Miami-to-Denver one-way going the other direction (which might take weeks of lost rental income).

That's not a minor logistics problem. It costs $1,000–$3,000+ to reposition a single motorhome across the country. That cost gets passed to you.

What You'll Actually Pay

One-way fees vary dramatically by route, season, and direction. Popular routes cost more because they're overwhelmingly one-directional.

Cruise America (the most common one-way fleet option) charges one-way fees based on the specific origin-destination pair. These fees typically range from $350 to $1,000+ on top of the standard rental rate. California to East Coast runs are among the most expensive.

P2P platforms (RVshare, Outdoorsy) occasionally have one-way listings, but they're rare. Most private owners want their RV back where it started. When one-way P2P rentals do exist, expect premium pricing — the owner is either paying to get it back or has arranged a complex repositioning schedule.

Real-world example: A 7-day Cruise America one-way rental from Los Angeles to Denver, Class C motorhome, July peak season:

That same route as a round-trip (return to LA) drops the one-way fee entirely — saving $750. But you're adding 3–4 days of rental and fuel cost for the return drive, so the savings aren't as dramatic as they look.

The Availability Problem

Here's what most people don't realize until they start searching: one-way availability is severely limited. Fleet companies only offer one-way between specific locations, and not all routes are available at all times.

The available routes change seasonally based on demand patterns. In spring, many RVs need to move from southern winter locations to northern summer markets — companies sometimes offer deals on these routes. In fall, the reverse happens.

But the routes you want — the classic cross-country drives — are the ones everyone else wants too. Summer one-way rentals on popular routes sell out months in advance. If you're planning a one-way trip for July or August, start looking in January or earlier.

Relocation Deals: The One Exception

Here's where the economics can flip in your favor.

Rental companies periodically need to move vehicles between locations for seasonal rebalancing, maintenance, or inventory management. Rather than pay a driver, they offer relocation deals — dramatically discounted rentals where you're essentially moving the vehicle for them.

How to find them:

Cruise America publishes relocation deals on their website, though they're not prominently featured. The deals typically give you 3–5 days at a massively reduced rate (sometimes $1/day plus mileage) to drive a specific vehicle from Point A to Point B on their timeline.

The catch: You don't choose the route, dates, or vehicle. The company tells you where the RV is, where it needs to go, and when. You have a fixed number of days to complete the drive. There's minimal flexibility for sightseeing side trips.

imoova.com and transfercar.com aggregate relocation deals from multiple companies and countries. Worth checking periodically if you have flexible timing.

Relocation deals are fantastic if you can match your travel plans to the company's logistics needs. They're useless if you have specific dates and routes in mind.

Route Planning for One-Way Trips

If you're committed to a one-way rental despite the cost, plan your route with these realities in mind:

Fuel budget is significant. A Class C motorhome gets 8–14 mpg. A cross-country drive of 2,500 miles at 10 mpg and $3.50/gallon is $875 in fuel alone. One way. You're not splitting that with a return trip.

Campground reservations need to be linear. You can't adjust or loop back if a particular campground is full. Book your sites before you finalize the route, not after.

Time pressure is real. Most one-way rentals have a fixed return date. If you lose a day to weather, mechanical issues, or just wanting to stay longer at Zion, your remaining schedule compresses.

Drop-off location matters. Verify the exact drop-off address and hours. Some rental locations are unstaffed on weekends or close early. Arriving at a closed drop-off location with a rental that's due is a solvable problem, but a stressful one.

Alternatives Worth Considering

Before committing to a one-way rental, think about whether these alternatives could work:

The big loop. Instead of A-to-B, plan a circular route that starts and ends at the same location. You cover similar ground without the one-way fees. A Denver-Yellowstone-Glacier-Badlands-Denver loop is cheaper than a Denver-to-Seattle one-way and arguably a better trip.

Fly one direction, drive the other. Fly to your starting city, pick up the RV, drive to your destination, drop off the RV, and fly home. You're paying a one-way RV rental plus a one-way flight, but you're avoiding driving a massive vehicle on a route you don't care about just to return it.

One-way with a travel trailer. If you have a tow vehicle, some trailer rental companies are more flexible on one-way logistics since the tow vehicle is yours. You drive home in your own car after dropping the trailer.

Split it into two trips. Sometimes two shorter round-trip rentals from different cities covers the same geography as one cross-country one-way, at lower total cost. Rent in Denver for a Colorado/Utah loop, then rent in Portland for a Pacific Northwest trip next season.

The Bottom Line

One-way RV rentals are possible, available, and sometimes magical. They're also expensive, logistically constrained, and require more planning than most people expect.

If the one-way experience is central to your trip vision — if it's specifically about the journey from one place to another — budget honestly and book early. The premium is real but so is the experience.

If you just want to visit a destination and the one-way aspect is more about convenience, run the numbers on a round-trip route instead. You'll almost certainly save enough to add extra days to your trip.

After three decades in this space, the question I hear most often is "can I just drive it one way?" The answer is always yes, followed by a conversation about what that actually costs.