Welcome to the RTA Forum!

Personally, I would consider your first option to be a non-starter. As a car owner, the amount of risk you'd be taking on letting someone random take your car and driving it across the country is astronamical. Frankly, even as a driver, I would be equally skeptical of anyone who would let you do such a thing, as either they have incredibly bad judgement or an alternative motive, such as letting you effectively be a mule.

The only way I'd ever do such a thing is if it was facilitated by some 3rd party. There's Turo - which is like AirBnb for cars, but I don't think they do one way rentals. There used to be auto-driveaway services that did let people drive cars that need to be moved, but I don't know what the status of those services is these days, and they've never been a great option when you are someone who needs to get between 2 specific destinations.

When it comes to car rental, the best thing I can say is shop around as much as you can. Changing the pickup/drop off locations or dates even by a little bit can make a big difference, but one way rentals are almost always expensive. If you could get to a bigger city, that could help - the problem with Burlington is the big city would typically be Montreal, and one way rentals across the border are either not going to be possible or extremely expensive.

Otherwise, I don't know what your reasons are for wanting to rent a car one way but considering the typical cost of one way rentals, you might consider transportaion options other than driving.