Ride and Car Sharing

One good way to reduce the cost of travel is to share a car with someone who is going your way. If you do this on the side of the road while sticking out your thumb it is called hitch-hiking and it can be both difficult and, in some places, illegal.

A Website that allows you to find rides or passengers is called www.ridejoy.com, and it operates in the United States. I tried to find rides between two cities I thought would be popular, New York and |Washington DC, but came up with a big zero regardless of the date. I was advised to list the ride I wanted, and the site would advise me when it found a match. There were some rides listed, but not many, so I'm not sure how well this site works.

Another possible source of rides or passengers is the Website Craigslist, www.craigslist.com.

If you are like me and have a car you seldom use, you may be able to make some extra bucks by renting it out to other people through a site called www.relayrides.com, which also operates in the U.S. You control the price and the availability of the car, and the site enables you to check the driving record and employment history of potential renters.

It's all part of the so-called sharing economy. Sharing here does not mean charity, but it is a way to short-circuit corporations by dealing directly with other individuals. One of the most successful examples of this type of organizaation is www.airbnb.com, which allows you to rent rooms from individuals in other cities.