Car Rental Columbus Airport
Compare & Book Columbus, Ohio Auto Hire
If you’re looking to visit the great state of Ohio and plan several day trips or even an extended road trip, search our site for low rates on rental cars at Columbus Airport and grab a deal before they’re gone.
See special offers on all rentals from Hyundai to Toyota to Chevrolet and book a bargain rental online today.
With so many discounts from big brand auto hire companies like Avis, Hertz and Europcar, you’ll benefit with savings on a range of rentals.
Port Columbus International Airport in central Ohio is the second busiest in the state after Cleveland’s Hopkins International Airport.
The city is also centrally located as it sprawls right in the conjunction of the Rust Belt, the Corn Belt, the Appalachia and the Plains.
Quite fittingly, Columbus is gateway to major cities of outlying states: Rent a car in Columbus Airport and take Interstate 270 which roughly marks the outer bounds of the metropolitan area.
I-270 is the most natural corridor to get to Indianapolis in Indiana, Detroit in Michigan, Louisville in Kentucky, and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.
You can arrange for one way car hire in Columbus Airport to be dropped off at in-city or airport locations across the country.
Rust Belt with Lake Michigan Circle Tour
Columbus sits right in the middle of the Rust Belt as the entire state of Ohio is within the confines of this post-industrial region that grew around the Great Lakes.
This once steel-clad region spreads out as far west as Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and as far east as Utica, New York.
Given Columbus’ location, you can map out an itinerary that will easily combine the western route of the Rust Belt and the entire circuit around Lake Michigan.
The drive by car will take you through Dayton, OH, Gary, IN, Chicago, IL and Milwaukee, WI.
These are highly urbanized cities with international airports where you can leave behind your hire car should you choose not to press further up and around the lake.
But if you do, from Green Bay about two hours north of Milwaukee, you can follow designated state highways that make up the Lake Michigan circuit and meet up with the Rust Belt again in Saginaw and finally in Detroit.
Rust Belt with Great Lakes Seaway Trail
Or you can cover the eastern route of the Rust Belt via historical manufacturing giants Pittsburgh, PA and Cleveland, OH.
Continue on to the Ohio-Pennsylvania border just 130 kilometers to the east, and follow the Great Lakes Seaway Trail that skirts the southern shore of Lake Erie, the New York side of the Niagara escarpment, and the southern shore of Lake Ontario.
The trail ends in Rooseveltown, New York, about four hours north of Utica, the eastern boundary of the Rust Belt.
Your closest drop off points for one way car hire is at Ontario International Airport about two hours north of Rooseveltown across the US-Canada border, or Syracuse Hancock International Airport an hour before you reach Utica.
Alternatively, you could head across to Chicago and follow Route 66 right across the USA to Los Angeles for a classic American road trip!
Corn Belt
Alternatively, your rental car puts you within close driving distance of the Corn Belt whose eastern boundary starts in western Ohio and spans the Midwest as far west as eastern Nebraska and eastern Kansas (although some maps include parts of both North and South Dakota).
This region is precursor to the Great Plains which starts from North Dakota to the north and Texas to the south including Kansas and Nebraska in the middle.
Hiring a car in Columbus Airport is highly advised as the Corn Belt is not well-serviced by public transport.
The region has few touristic highlights – the large rock formations of Scotts Bluff National Monument and 500-foot stone pillar of the Chimney Rock National Historic Site are literally a standout – but this flat farmland and sparsely populated ‘heartland of America’ is worth going out of the way if you desire solitude.
