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Driving vs. Flying

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Re: Driving vs. Flying

  • The only time I've driven 8 hours for a wedding was when I was 20, going with my boyfriend and parents. 
    Every other time is flying. 

    I'm sure a lot has to do with general convenience of the closest airport. O'Hare is an easy public transit trip away, as is Midway. If we lived in another part of Illinois or up somewhere in Wisconsin, sure we'd do a lot more road trips. 

    Couple things stand out to me-- we had a conversation with close friends and the guy said he hated flying. They do a lot of long haul road trips. They love it; they're teachers so they have long stretches of time off to kill. But we're saying, if we drive away from Chicago for 5 hours, we end up in rural areas, nowhere special (no offense to anyone). If we fly for 5 hours, we're in the Caribbean. Four hours we could be in Cabo or San Fran. Hell yes we're flying. 

    Also, people complain about connections. I respect that budgets can be issues, but if you could save a little extra money for direct connections it's so worth it. Yes, there are origins and destinations with no direct flights; that's the network for you. But people who have direct options and cheap out with connections, and then complain? No sympathy. (And I'm an airline spouse too, full disclosure.)
    I only fly when I'm going on vacation or visiting a friend so even if I save $50 on a non-direct flight, I'll probably be spending just as much at the bar of my connecting flight


  • CMGragain said:
    Just a point - if you don't want to drive for 4 hours, remember that you may be standing in line for several hours at many major airports to get through security screening.  Then you get to wait in uncomfortable lounge seats until boarding time.  Ugh!  I'd rather be driving and viewing pretty scenery.
    For me, I literally live 10 minutes drive to major airport, so that helps skew things to flying for me.  I used to live 2 hours from a major airport and extra time made driving more feasible than flying for several trips.  But, I usually get to airport 1-1.5 hours before flight.  I don't mind waiting at the airport and reading or people watching.  And I feel like time just seems to go quicker a the airport than when I'm driving. When DH is driving, I get car sick if I read or do anything other than watch the road.  That can make for a very long road trip at times, even if the scenery is nice.

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  • For me it's a matter of balancing how long I'm going to be somewhere with the drive. When I was in grad school I usually would drive the 10 hours (plus traffic) home for breaks. But I had more time then than I had money, and I usually was going to be there for a week or more. Now that time off is more precious than money I would choose to fly if the drive was more than 7 hours because I rarely have an entire week off and don't want to spend most of my vacation traveling. My family now lives about 16 hours away and I don't really see a scenario in the near future where I would choose to drive over flying. 
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  • H and I love road trips. We've taken several 25+ hour trips and it's been very enjoyable for us. And like a lot of PPs said, it's easier for us. We leave/stop/pack/do whatever and whenever we want.

    I've only flown a handful of times in my life. I don't like it. Unless I can get a super cheap SW flight or I don't have extra time, I always drive. Most of the time I don't even consider flying.

    But, a lot of my traveling is also for sports and I'm on a budget so it's cheaper, easier and less stressful to drive than to worry about flight delays or anything like that. I'd rather drive and arrive/leave when I want than schedule extra time or a hotel night to fly.

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  • julieanne912julieanne912 member
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    edited April 2016
    CMGragain said:
    For me, it is all about the money.  If I can get cheap air tickets, I would fly.  A ten hour drive isn't all that much out here in the west.  It takes me 4+ hours just to get to the nearest major airport.  (Denver or Salt Lake City)  We have a local airport served by United, Delta and American, but the cost goes way up to avoid that last 4 hours of driving.  Now that our budget is less stringent, we usually pay to fly from here.
    I was going to say, this is the case where I'm from (thankfully not where I live now).  There's a local airport but all flights are ridiculously expensive (it's in central CA and to fly to Denver, it's $400+).  So, generally it's easier to just drive somewhere, than it is to drive 4 hours to the closest airport, find somewhere to park the car, etc etc, especially it's for a quick long weekend trip for a wedding.

    As for me, I live about 30 minutes from DIA so it's pretty easy and not too expensive to fly somewhere if it has a decent airport.  H has so many points on Southwest we could take about 3 trips for free. But, this afternoon we're getting a car to drive 5 hours so H can play in a hockey tournament in his hometown in Wyoming.  We could fly but with all his equipment, not really an option, and the only planes that fly into his hometown airport have propellers, which he refuses to fly on.
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  • As for me, I live about 30 minutes from DIA so it's pretty easy and not too expensive to fly somewhere if it has a decent airport.  H has so many points on Southwest we could take about 3 trips for free. But, this afternoon we're getting a car to drive 5 hours so H can play in a hockey tournament in his hometown in Wyoming.  We could fly but with all his equipment, not really an option, and the only planes that fly into his hometown airport have propellers, which he refuses to fly on.

    I certainly get this. My longer car trips I ever take are ski trips - that's about the only way I'll drive 6+ hours!
  • labrolabro member
    First Anniversary First Answer First Comment 5 Love Its
    There's just too many factors for me. How long we'll be staying, who we're going to see, why we're travelling, are we bringing the dog, are we bringing a lot of extra stuff. I keep a separately funded travel/vacation budget which makes it easier to make these decisions without the cost factor looming over our heads constantly. I will say that I will not make a drive that's going to take me more than a day with very rare exceptions. I'd much much much rather fly than spend so much time stuck in a car. It probably also makes a difference that we're in Atlanta and the airport here has direct flights to pretty much anywhere you want to go for a not extravagant amount of money.



  • I usually err on the side of flying for anything longer than 5 hours. However, how much time I have off is a huge factor for me as to whether I drive or fly. With 3 weeks of vacation time, I gotta make every hour count...

    My example - it takes me 6.5 hours (usually) to drive from where I live in CT to my parents' house in VA. It's also a 1 hour flight (and never more than $100 per person). If I have a week off, I'll drive. If I have 4 or 5 days, I'll fly. For me, it's prioritizing my time. It's very rare that I'll have enough time off from work to make anything longer than a 5 hour drive worth it.

    I'm also the world's most nervous flyer however, lol, so the booze budget has to come into play as well ;)


  • My cap is about 6 hours for a weekend trip, 8-10 for a longer trip. The idea of driving 9 hours on Friday and then doing the same thing again on Sunday kills me, but I can handle it over a week. 

    I live in a major city with subway access to an airport that has direct flights to everywhere, so I rarely have to deal with parking or connections. Even still, I was beyond annoyed when a work trip made me fly to a city that's a 4 hour drive away. It takes 30 minutes to get to the airport, I was an hour early, the flight was an hour, and then they lost my bag so I was stuck for another hour. Driving would have actually been faster. 

    I've been travelling internationally a lot lately, though, so flying is just part of my routine. 
  • ei34ei34 member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    Six hours is as long a drive as I can tolerate.  My parents have a second home in New Hampshire, and the drive from NYC is approximately 6 hours- it's a drag. 
  • For me it's about balancing my time and cost. DH and I will be driving 5 hours to a wedding this summer. I initially wanted to fly, but we will be travelling from Canada to the USA, so we need to be at the airport ~2 hours before the flight, and the flight costs about $500 per person. Not to mention those 'cheap' flights have layovers so the travel time alone would be around 6 hours. In this case, driving is definitively the cheaper and less time consuming option.
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  • Usually drive because it's cheaper. I'm in Alaska. 6 hour drives are pretty run of the mill. So I'd drive that easy. I'd drive 12-15 or even more unless the flight was super cheap. Which in Alaska, flights are never cheap. 
  • The longest I drive is 6 hours to visit my MIL for a long weekend or thanksgiving. I would rather eat dirt than sit in a car for more than 3-4 hours so I will happily fly anywhere. 

    These days no one in their right mind needs to arrive at the airport 2.5 hours early. Pack a carry on, check in the day before, arrive an hour before your flight, or 1.5 hr if it's a super busy airport (and even at o'hare I've gotten through in less than 30min on an Friday afternoon), and call it a day. Flying isn't rocket science and people that make a big deal about it mystify me. 

    Of course, if flying isn't an affordable option I understand, but people who choose to suffer through an 8+ hr drive bc they don't like to fly are nuts in my book. I hate the smell of airplanes, I get motion sick easily, I hate standing in security lines with stupid fucking people who don't understand how to remove their shoes and laptops and jackets, but I'd choose that every time over a long drive. 
    You obviously haven't been to Newark airport recently!  We flew out last week and the security lines were so long they went down the escalator to another level and wound back and forth.  We were fortunate to have TSA pre-check, but I would've been seriously stressed if I had to wait in that line.  We do a fair amount of traveling and I've never seen anything like it before where the line begins on a different level.  I will never arrive with less than 2 hours and will probably stick to closer to 3.
  • I always prefer flying to driving, but it depends on where we are going, why, and how long we will be there. 6 hours would be about the max I would drive if I were staying a short time. And even with that, I'd not be looking forward to turning around and making the 6-hour drive home the next day or so. 
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  • JoanE2012 said:
    The longest I drive is 6 hours to visit my MIL for a long weekend or thanksgiving. I would rather eat dirt than sit in a car for more than 3-4 hours so I will happily fly anywhere. 

    These days no one in their right mind needs to arrive at the airport 2.5 hours early. Pack a carry on, check in the day before, arrive an hour before your flight, or 1.5 hr if it's a super busy airport (and even at o'hare I've gotten through in less than 30min on an Friday afternoon), and call it a day. Flying isn't rocket science and people that make a big deal about it mystify me. 

    Of course, if flying isn't an affordable option I understand, but people who choose to suffer through an 8+ hr drive bc they don't like to fly are nuts in my book. I hate the smell of airplanes, I get motion sick easily, I hate standing in security lines with stupid fucking people who don't understand how to remove their shoes and laptops and jackets, but I'd choose that every time over a long drive. 
    You obviously haven't been to Newark airport recently!  We flew out last week and the security lines were so long they went down the escalator to another level and wound back and forth.  We were fortunate to have TSA pre-check, but I would've been seriously stressed if I had to wait in that line.  We do a fair amount of traveling and I've never seen anything like it before where the line begins on a different level.  I will never arrive with less than 2 hours and will probably stick to closer to 3.

    Interesting. I fly out of Newark all the time and I've never seen the lines like that. I arrive 2 hours early for international, 1-1.5 for domestic, and usually wind up at my gate at least an hour early. 
  • Count me in the rather fly than drive group! Four hours is about the most I'd drive for a long weekend trip at this point- I do not find anything enjoyable about road trips and would much rather be sitting on an airplane enjoying a mimosa and not putting the wear-and-tear on my car.

    I think it will be different when H and I have kids- as a PP mentioned, flying gets way more expensive with little ones, not to mention more stressful because so many more factors are out of your control. 
  • JoanE2012 said:
    The longest I drive is 6 hours to visit my MIL for a long weekend or thanksgiving. I would rather eat dirt than sit in a car for more than 3-4 hours so I will happily fly anywhere. 

    These days no one in their right mind needs to arrive at the airport 2.5 hours early. Pack a carry on, check in the day before, arrive an hour before your flight, or 1.5 hr if it's a super busy airport (and even at o'hare I've gotten through in less than 30min on an Friday afternoon), and call it a day. Flying isn't rocket science and people that make a big deal about it mystify me. 

    Of course, if flying isn't an affordable option I understand, but people who choose to suffer through an 8+ hr drive bc they don't like to fly are nuts in my book. I hate the smell of airplanes, I get motion sick easily, I hate standing in security lines with stupid fucking people who don't understand how to remove their shoes and laptops and jackets, but I'd choose that every time over a long drive. 
    You obviously haven't been to Newark airport recently!  We flew out last week and the security lines were so long they went down the escalator to another level and wound back and forth.  We were fortunate to have TSA pre-check, but I would've been seriously stressed if I had to wait in that line.  We do a fair amount of traveling and I've never seen anything like it before where the line begins on a different level.  I will never arrive with less than 2 hours and will probably stick to closer to 3.

    Interesting. I fly out of Newark all the time and I've never seen the lines like that. I arrive 2 hours early for international, 1-1.5 for domestic, and usually wind up at my gate at least an hour early. 
    It was awful - I've never seen anything like it either. Here's a recent article on it.

    http://www.northjersey.com/news/security-delays-at-newark-airport-expected-to-get-worse-1.1543930

    DH and I have always talked about getting Global Entry (with TSA pre-check), but now we are definitely doing it.  Though, according to that article, TSA pre-check is not even guaranteed to be open!


  • If the point of the drive is just to get from Point A to Point B, then 6 hours is my personal limit for driving now, and that's even pushing it.

    I literally cannot stand the feeling of my life (and vacation time) wasting away in the car; Those are hours that I will never be able to get back again and I'm not getting any younger, and nothing productive is actually happening.  I'm just in a car trying to get to wherever my trip is actually supposed to start.

    Yes, airfare can be expensive and airports can be a pain in the ass (checking in, TSA, connections, children on planes, etc.), but my life is priceless and I want to waste as little of it in a fucking car trying to get to my destination as possible :-P

    I flew over Thanksgiving last year and it was easier for me to get to Georgia for Thanksgiving than it was to get to Tulsa for a wedding a few years ago; We left in the morning on the Wednesday before, walked right up to security and then right through, no line, we don't have TSA pre-check.  We had a ton of time to kill because we got there so early because "ZOMG flying over Thanksgiving is the WORST!!! The lines are sooo bad!!"  We flew out of Atlanta in the evening the Sunday after Thanksgiving and again, had no issues- the security line was a constantly moving queue.

    If the entire point of the trip is a road trip, well that's different.  I'd drive across country with the right ppl and ion the right vehicle.

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  • I live about a $20 taxi/uber ride to a major airport (Boston), so I fly whenever my destination is near another  major airport. It would never even cross my mind to drive more than about 4 hours--and that's 4 hours in a direction without a major airport (i.e. western MA, or northern New England). We did drive to a wedding in NY, outside of NYC, last year. Only because it was about an hour to 90 minutes outside of the city, and a car was a necessity. Otherwise we likely would have taken the train. I got to NYC for work, and usually fly! It's only about 30 min in the air--barely time for beverage service! But still, I consider the full time for me to be 10 minutes to get there, a little over an hour to get through security/wait, an hour on the plain including boarding/deplaning, and then probably a half hour taxi into the city--that's a total of 3.5 hours. Still quicker than driving. And I find it easier and more relaxing than driving. 

    Most times we travel we are going to either urban destinations, or a tropical vacation, so a car is not a necessity. I think we've rented a car once or twice out of about 20 trips. 
  • @redwoodorigal I flew out of FLL on Monday, arrived two hours before our 8:00 pm boarding (because we flew ghetto Spirit). We had to check bags because a carry-on wasnt enough. Bag drop took 45 minutes and security another hour. I have never seen a more disorganized airport and will never fly Spirit to that airline again (didn't have this problem with Delta a couple years ago). I've gotten through longer lines at Midway faster!

    We flew into FLL from Tampa in February. FLL is *by far* the worst airport that we've ever been in. The layout must have been done by someone on serious drugs - they have you walk through the people waiting on security to get your bags, go downstairs to bag claim, then back up and through all of the security people again to get to ground transportation/rental cars.
  • I prefer flying to driving myself.  It gives me more time at the location vs in a car.  But cost usually plays a role.  My parents live 9 hours away from me.  I don't think I'd attempt the trip alone, but with someone I could do up to 10 in a car.  5 hours on my own. 

    Weddings?  It would depend on the cost, and of course, the person  Thankfully, Southwest usually has reasonable fares.


  • We weight out the costs of flying vs. driving. Since we moved to Houston, we seem to fly a lot more - we'll usually drive if it's less than 300miles/5-6 hours, because we used to do a lot of Pittsburgh - Philly drives, so that distance is pretty easy for us. (San Antonio, Austin, Dallas are always drives.) We'll be going to Arkansas in May, which is looking to be 6-7 hours. 

    The furthest we ever did was Philly - Houston because we were moving with 2 dogs. That was about 1550miles - 26 or so hours of drive time. Way too far.

    My preference is to fly, but with 3 of us, it can get pricey. 
  • I hate flying.  It requires a Xanax and huddling in the window seat with a drink and no one talking to me.  I have 5 kids and a fiance, so that doesn't work.  The only way I'll fly is if it's just me and the drive would be more than 8 hours and time sensitive.

    We live a roughly 28 hour drive from my family (moving home next month!) and we've made the drive 1-2 times a year for the last 5 years.  It can suck, and my back hurts at the end, but I arrive sane without being drugged out of my mind.
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  • *Barbie* said:
    @redwoodorigal I flew out of FLL on Monday, arrived two hours before our 8:00 pm boarding (because we flew ghetto Spirit). We had to check bags because a carry-on wasnt enough. Bag drop took 45 minutes and security another hour. I have never seen a more disorganized airport and will never fly Spirit to that airline again (didn't have this problem with Delta a couple years ago). I've gotten through longer lines at Midway faster!

    We flew into FLL from Tampa in February. FLL is *by far* the worst airport that we've ever been in. The layout must have been done by someone on serious drugs - they have you walk through the people waiting on security to get your bags, go downstairs to bag claim, then back up and through all of the security people again to get to ground transportation/rental cars.
    I used to live in Ft. Lauderdale. FLL is the armpit of airports. I either drove the 20 hours home if I was staying a while, or drove to West Palm Beach and flew out of there for shorter trips. West Palm was the Hilton compared to FLL.

    I love to fly, but I also love roadtrips. If I'm going somewhere where having access to my car will be helpful and I'm staying awhile, I'm fine with driving 12+ hours. If it's a short trip where I don't need a car, I'll fly.
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