Q&A: Get paid to drive a stranger’s car across the country?

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Today's listener question brings up one of my long ago lifelong goals. Like I have previously mentioned how when I was a teenager, I really, really wanted to own a mailboxes, et cetera, franchise called UPS stores these days. But when I was a teenager, that was my entrepreneurial aspiration, among other things. Another thing I wanted to do was to become an airline career or get paid to drive other people's cars across the United States. Now, perhaps that dream started when I was a teenage runaway heading for Arizona in a stolen Chevy Malibu.

That is also a true story. Unfortunately, I didn't get very far. The police authorities managed to convince my friend and I that there is no Arizona, no painted desert, no Sedona. And my dreams were dashed against the rocks of a juvenile detention center in Huntsville, Alabama. Those were the days.

But hey, let's stay on topic with our listeners question. That's what this is about. Can you in this day and age, 2022, get paid to drive someone's car across the country when they relocate? Not steal their car, like I was doing, but actually get paid to do it with their permission? That's the question, how do you do it?

My answer is coming right up. [Music]

Hi Chris, this is Daniel. And I've been following your projects for a while now. I've heard you can get paid to drive someone's car for them across the country. Like when they're relocating for work and don't want to drive.

Do you know anything about that? Like what other opportunities there might be? For example, to start a competing service or even just a platform that connects movers with drivers. It seems like a problem that a lot of people would face or at least enough people that it would make for a good side hustle. Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks. [Music]

Hey Daniel, thanks for calling in. Thanks for the question. I know a little bit about this. It is still possible to do it.

There are people, you know, every month who need to relocate for whatever reason and they're not willing to drive their car across the country or they can't or they just prefer something different. So what you do is there's a number of services, a few of them, iDriveYourCar.com, Rody.com, ProfessionalDrivers.com, DriveCarToFlorida.com. I guess that last one is kind of regionally specific. Those are just a few that I found and a few minutes of searching. So there are services that do this and you can kind of put your name down on a list and, you know, apply to be a driver.

And so it's possible. You don't make a ton of money doing it, but it can be, you know, a couple hundred dollars a day while you're on the road. So I think the idea is to do it while it's something you want to do for other reasons. Like you actually want to drive across the country on a road trip and wouldn't it be great to also get paid for it, you know. Could you compete with this kind of service?

You know, as Daniel's asking, that seems less obvious to me because there are a number of these existing services already. And so what I tend to do in these situations is, you know, I tend to think about related business ideas. Okay, so you might be able to start a competing service here, but there's a bunch of them out there already. What else do people who are moving across the country in a hurry need? You know, in some cases their employer is paying to move their car.

So in other words, it's not usually a slow leisurely move. Might those people have other needs? Might there be something else you could do, you know, jumping off from the original idea? But in terms of actually driving somebody's car across the country and not stealing it, as I mentioned, I would start with those sites I mentioned, maybe some others that you find by Googling, and then consider whether there's something you can offer that's fundamentally different. So good luck.

I have no affiliation with those sites, by the way. Drivecartoflorida.com. Maybe I'll sign up at some point. But if you've got a question, sidehustleschool.com/questions will be featuring them throughout the year, along with updates from other listeners as they launch and grow their projects. Thank you so much for tuning in today.

My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]

- From the Onward Project.