I am going to be spending some time in Boulder this summer, visiting friends, looking at grad schools, but mostly doing a ton of work for my uncle so I can pay off my burdensome college loans. I will also be hiking, hiking, hiking, when I can.

That said, I am going to be moving around the city of Boulder and probably the state of Colorado a lot June through August and will therefore need my car over there.

My options were to drive down or have my Volvo shipped. This brings me to the point of my post. I wanted to see what way really was the cheapest when crunching the numbers. I have read some people’s posts and heard some input from friends but not really gotten to where I want to be with this. Hopefully, this post will help others like me by providing a more detailed and thoughtful explanation of the options in tangible figures.

To start things off I went to Automobile Shipping Quotes and acquired a price quote in less than a minute. By the way, let me just say that this website was easy to use, provided me with ten companies, several of which I found to be reputable, and was a good all around resource. Other sites I used were not quite so reliable. Anyway, I got the quote for my 1997 Volvo 850 wagon to go from Bridgeport, CT to Boulder, CO. The result was an estimate of about 935$.

But what would it cost to drive down to Boulder with gas at such obscene and ever-increasing rates?

I believe the national average, according to NPR this morning, is about 3.61 a gallon, though in CT it has hit over 3.80. I get about 16 miles per gallon (its large and clunky beast) and the distance to travel is 1,852 miles from point A to point B. Putting all of the numbers together gave me a grand total of about $420. So as of now, this it looks 500$ cheaper to drive than ship. But, this is assuming I am a robot who does not need to stop, sleep, eat, or drink.

Assuming I drive approx. 615 miles a day, which is quite a lot of driving, especially if I drive them back to back to back, it will take me three days to make the trip. This means I will need to spend two nights in a hotel. Assuming a decent place with running water and clean sheets is going to cost at least 95$ a night. This adds 180$ to the trip. Now I am up to 610$. Say I spend only 25$ a day on food. Multiplied by three days, this equals 75$. This puts me at about a total of 685 dollars, still 250$ less expensive than shipping.

However, here comes the key part for me. If I drive, I will lose three days of work. Now my uncle is going to pay me 100$ a day to chop wood for his business. Therefore, in losses, this adds another 300$ to driving. At this point, it has become 50$ more expensive for me to drive across country than to ship it, all things considered.

Well, I guess there’s one more factor to consider. I have left out the environmental impact of the trip. Being eco-friendly with a mom who has a Masters degree in Environmental Science I would be remiss to not consider the ecological ramifications of my decision, even if they are seen as secondary to the monetary ones.

I measured my CO2 footprint with just a few clicks of a button at www.whatsmyco2.com I found that if I were to drive from CT to CO, I would put 2,364 tons of CO2 into our atmosphere. On the other hand, if I were to fly, it would put 1,370 tons of CO2 into the air – far less. I was quite surprised for this certainly sounds counterintuitive, but do your own test on the site and tell me if it is off.

Of course there is still the factor of the auto shipping truck's CO2 output to be added to the flights output. If one is to add the likely CO2 output of the shipping truck to the 1,370 tons put out by flying, the result is more or less equal to or perhaps a bit more than driving alone.

The crucial thing to understand, however, is that the shipping truck carries ten cars at a time and is thus removing the CO2 output of 10 various vehicles from the atmosphere and replacing it with just one truck. Noting this, it seems whatever extra CO2 may be put into the atmosphere by a flight and truck ride versus just a car ride in a gas-guzzling wagon is significantly offset by the CO2 not put into the air by 9 other vehicles (subtracting my own) taken off the road.

Thus, it appears as if shipping my car from CT to CO is not only 50$ cheaper, but better for the environment to the equivalent of removing 9 cars from the road.

So what do you think? Am I right for the most part or am I way off?

Do you have any suggestions? Comments are more than welcome.

Do you have any related experiences/stories to share?