Zip­car is a great car-sharing ser­vice that has made me rethink ever own­ing a car in the city. It’s easy to use, afford­able, and most impor­tantly con­ve­nient. You can use their web­site or iPhone app to search for nearby cars and see when they’re avail­able. Book your reser­va­tion for just a range of cars like BMWs, trucks, or a nice hybrid. Show up for your reser­va­tion and wave your Zip­card over the wind­shield. The car will unlock and you’re on your way.

I’ve been using Zip­cars for almost a year now and love them. I usu­ally take pub­lic tran­sit here in Chicago, but every once in a while I’ll meet friends out for din­ner some place where it is more con­ve­nient to drive, head to the sub­urbs for shop­ping, or need to move a couch or some­thing else that requires a truck. Gas and insur­ance are included with the yearly mem­ber­ship fee, and most cars are equipped with iPasses so you can breeze through tolls which are billed to you later. If you’re cut­ting it close on your reser­va­tion, you can use their iPhone app or 800 num­ber to see if you can extend the reser­va­tion. They do a much bet­ter job explain­ing it all on their site.

Beyond the ser­vice, I also love all the tech­nol­ogy behind Zip­cars. Their web­site is really put together inte­grat­ing with Google Maps and have as few of steps as needed to make a reser­va­tion. The iPhone app is just as well put together using your GPS to find nearby cars and hav­ing intu­itive fil­ter­ing meth­ods. The Zip­card is RFID enabled so you don’t need to swipe it any­where, enter any num­bers, or even take it out of your wal­let. Check­ing in and out is almost mag­i­cal since you don’t ever see or talk to a per­son. When the car is parked in its park­ing spot and you lock it, it is con­sid­ered checked in.

Every­one always asks me, “what if you’re late return­ing a car?” Well, it actu­ally hap­pened a few weeks ago to me. We were out at IKEA pick­ing up all sorts of new stuff to fur­nish our new apart­ment and it took longer than we thought. I tried to extend my reser­va­tion like I had in the past using their iPhone app. It said I couldn’t extend my reser­va­tion and if I was going to be late, I should call sup­port. I called and apol­o­gized for not being able to get it back in time. They asked for an esti­mated time of arrival to notify the next per­son and told me I would be charged the late fee of $50. It’s a good sys­tem that keeps peo­ple on time, and if you read on their help sec­tion they say they some­times pay for a taxi for the peo­ple who have to wait to get them to another car. It’s that kind of company.

I’m not being paid to write this overly pos­i­tive review of Zip­car. I just really love it. I’ve even cleared out an ad space so that if you sign up, you’ll get $25 in dri­ving credit (and I’ll also get $25 in dri­ving credit). If you’re in a big city with­out a car or on a cam­pus like Indi­ana Uni­ver­sity Bloom­ing­ton, you should def­i­nitely try it out.