diff --git a/python/ray/tune/trainable/trainable.py b/python/ray/tune/trainable/trainable.py
index 79c4cfca37f56..730a5c5d1d910 100644
--- a/python/ray/tune/trainable/trainable.py
+++ b/python/ray/tune/trainable/trainable.py
@@ -177,8 +177,7 @@ def __init__(
 
         self._storage = storage
 
-        if _use_storage_context():
-            assert storage
+        if _use_storage_context() and storage:
             assert storage.trial_fs_path
             logger.debug(f"StorageContext on the TRAINABLE:\n{storage}")
 
@@ -525,17 +524,29 @@ def save(
                         )
 
                 local_checkpoint = NewCheckpoint.from_directory(checkpoint_dir)
-                persisted_checkpoint = self._storage.persist_current_checkpoint(
-                    local_checkpoint
-                )
-                # The checkpoint index needs to be incremented.
-                # NOTE: This is no longer using "iteration" as the folder indexing
-                # to be consistent with fn trainables.
-                self._storage.current_checkpoint_index += 1
 
-                checkpoint_result = _TrainingResult(
-                    checkpoint=persisted_checkpoint, metrics=self._last_result.copy()
-                )
+                if self._storage:
+                    persisted_checkpoint = self._storage.persist_current_checkpoint(
+                        local_checkpoint
+                    )
+                    # The checkpoint index needs to be incremented.
+                    # NOTE: This is no longer using "iteration" as the folder indexing
+                    # to be consistent with fn trainables.
+                    self._storage.current_checkpoint_index += 1
+
+                    checkpoint_result = _TrainingResult(
+                        checkpoint=persisted_checkpoint,
+                        metrics=self._last_result.copy(),
+                    )
+                else:
+                    # `storage=None` only happens when initializing the
+                    # Trainable manually, outside of Tune/Train.
+                    # In this case, no storage is set, so the default behavior
+                    # is to just not upload anything and report a local checkpoint.
+                    # This is fine for the main use case of local debugging.
+                    checkpoint_result = _TrainingResult(
+                        checkpoint=local_checkpoint, metrics=self._last_result.copy()
+                    )
 
             else:
                 checkpoint_result: _TrainingResult = checkpoint_dict_or_path