What's the furthest you have driven (or flown) to go to an auction?

Even "back in the day" ... two years ago before the tv shows ... I never went further than 75 miles.

I quickly learned that junk is junk whether it's in your home town or 100 miles away.  Just didn't seem cost effective to me considering the kinds of locker we run into.

I have gone as far as 150 miles for what I thought would be a great auction.  It doesn't take long to realize that the whales, noobies, gamblers, and treasure hunters are at every facility, near or far.  And to make it worse, if you buy a locker that is going to take more than one trip.......it doesn't take long for the profit to fly out the window.

I'll go as far as 50 miles now, but only a couple that I'll even do that.....most no farther than 30.  And, I have started skipping a number of runs....such as Public Storage.  Sure, they have a lot of lockers in a day at a number of facilities, but they also have a large crowd, the quality of the lockers has gone down, and it's turned into an all day waste of time and fuel.  Every once in a while, I'll hear of somebody that got a deal, but it's pure luck.  Anything that shows value goes for way too much!

20 miles

We have driven about 100 max. just to get a feeling of the out of our comfort zones.  If we think the drive is worth it we will do it again but if not, we then know not to EVER do that again!! 

When I first started out I had a hard time missing auctions, not wanting to miss out on an amazing unit.  I once drove from North of Seattle to Elma, close to 180 miles or so on a Saturday with trailer in tow.  There were 13 units, over 75 people, and high prices for crap lockers.  I ended up buying a $20 locker for $110 just because I made the trip and didn't want to go home empty handed.

Not even counting the time and gas I didn't even come close to breaking even on the unit.  Lessons learned for me were not to travel great distances and to come to terms with the fact that I can't see them all.  I now limit my travles to 50 miles and that's even stretching it.  I would much rather overpay by $100 or so at a facility right down the street than drive all over the state to try and catch a bargain.