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You can say that again. I avoid flying as much as I can anymore. 800 miles is quite a road trip though. If you have a good car, or want to rent one, (I am thinking about breakdowns on the road), particularly if you are not traveling alone, driving makes more sense. If you are retired, you can make this into roughly 2 days of 400 miles each, and not make a chore of it. You could, maybe, take "blue" roads rather than the interstate, and this might make it more fun as well (or, depending on where you are going, that could be totally impractical)
Wife's daughter lives in Seattle, about 200 miles from the house, so driving there is a foregone conclusion, particularly since the two airports we can use are each about 50 miles from the house. My sister lives in Atlanta, so unless I can take the time to drive for a week to get there (I'm not retired yet), distasteful as it is, flying is the only practical option, and is a good bit cheaper than taking a week on the road, with fuel costs, motels, meals, etc.
A theoretical 800 mile trip - if DW wants to come, I'd drive for sure. If not, I would be squarely in the "grey area" of fly or drive. In winter, I'd fly.
Consider renting a car for the trip, you could "try out" a car you might be interested in buying, and if you have any sort of on-road trouble, the rental company will take care of you. Otherwise you might be stuck with a problem where you don't know which shops are any good, or you could have the car totaled in a wreck, and you are stuck renting a car where you are. Not likely of course, but just something else I can outsource to the rental agency by taking their car.
This is a good idea. When I was raising my daughter and could only afford old, beater type cars, I rented a car if I needed one to drive for a vacation or long weekend.
Now I have a car that's in better shape but great on mileage (Corolla). Not so great for driving in Canadian winter weather, though, so when I did my trip up here last December and took the train to Syracuse and then rented, I rented an SUV. It was a beautiful vehicle, but the usage/cost of the gas for the SUV vs. what I was used to was quite the shocker.
My philosophy now and for the future is that if I can't get somewhere and back without having to include an overnight stay, I simply don't go. I did a lot of traveling when in my twenties, thirties, forties and early fifties when I was in a lot better physical and financial shape than I am now. I don't have any long-distance family but even if I did, I'd not be the one doing the traveling.
An 800-miler (1600 miles round trip) would be impossible to complete "on wheels" within 24 hours and so if it were possible to arrange both flights within that timeframe, I would consider flying. However, given my location and those of the nearest airports, that would be a huge challenge and would also probably be prohibitively expensive.
So I guess my answer to the OP's question re long-distance travel has to be "neither", at least not until someone invents a transporter a la Star Trek.
My philosophy now and for the future is that if I can't get somewhere and back without having to include an overnight stay, I simply don't go. I did a lot of traveling when in my twenties, thirties, forties and early fifties when I was in a lot better physical and financial shape than I am now. I don't have any long-distance family but even if I did, I'd not be the one doing the traveling.
An 800-miler (1600 miles round trip) would be impossible to complete "on wheels" within 24 hours and so if it were possible to arrange both flights within that timeframe, I would consider flying. However, given my location and those of the nearest airports, that would be a huge challenge and would also probably be prohibitively expensive.
So I guess my answer to the OP's question re long-distance travel has to be "neither", at least not until someone invents a transporter a la Star Trek.
I wish for that all the time. I don't mind my once-a-month thousand-mile roundtrip...most of the time. But a transporter would be nice.
If it starts to bug me, I just think of the woman my daughter met in one of her language courses whose job requires her to spend one week of every month in Beijing. Imagine two 13-hour flights every month. Makes my drive seem easy.
It's a 35 minute drive to a airport shuttle bus terminal with free parking in an un-monitored, flood prone parking lot, an hour and a half rough buss ride to the airport. The bus departure is a choice between the one that get you there too late vs the one that gets you there an hour early. On the return, once we get our luggage we find that a bus just left and have to wait an hour for the next. We used to do that.
Now we find it cost, just a little, more to just drive to the airport and pay for parking. The bus was the worst part of many trips. My back is sensitive to a certain kind of bounce rebound on bumps that seems to be designed in to buses.
If we lived a short taxi ride from the airport, perhaps we'd fly more.
There are toilet facilities all along our highways in Alaska. You would know them as trees.
Not if you're stuck in traffic with nowhere to get out. Like on the MacKenzie River Road outside Eugene, OR when a tree was over the highway. Stuck for 2 hours and had to pee in a paper Coke cup I fortunately had, while balanced on my seat. It can happen! Or worse yet, I-5 near San Diego for 2 hours behind an accident.
I'll drive. After being strip searched years ago by TSA and put on a cattle car with wings, I'll never fly again. Anyway when you drive you get to see the World's Largest Ball of Twine, the World's Deepest Hand Dug Well, stuff like that.
Yes! And Car-Henge! Half-buried cars in a circle. Forget where. All that stuff is great.
We used to drive UT to SoCal once a year and made a fun stop in Vegas, so we enjoyed the empty freeways of I-70 and the scenery. But it got a little more harrowing on I-15. We loved our Toyota Rav4 for road trips.
So, if still in the U.S., I'd always say drive, then we have a car and get to see fun stuff.
Here, we have an excellent bus system---luxury for cheap and the thrill of hairpin turns through the Andes. I wish we could take a train (like in Europe) back to the U.S. but no choice there. The flights are awful from here.
Going back to Europe, I think we'll take a cross-Atlantic cruise again. That's the way to go!
Yes! And Car-Henge! Half-buried cars in a circle. Forget where. All that stuff is great.
We used to drive UT to SoCal once a year and made a fun stop in Vegas, so we enjoyed the empty freeways of I-70 and the scenery. But it got a little more harrowing on I-15. We loved our Toyota Rav4 for road trips.
So, if still in the U.S., I'd always say drive, then we have a car and get to see fun stuff.
Carhenge is in Nebraska. There's also the Cadillac Ranch just west of Amarillo, but they're not in a circle.
These sorts of trips are as much about the journey as they are about the destination.
These sorts of trips are as much about the journey as they are about the destination.
Exactly -- we may never pass this way again so this is the time to see what there is to see. I'll stop for almost anything. I drove through the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert NP in a snowstorm and it was an interesting black and white scenic photo opportunity with no one else around. I do a lot of photography so I'm always looking for unusual places to explore. I'm also pretty social and enjoy meeting people on the train if I travel cross country. I've met writers and film producers and park rangers and beekeepers and over a dozen others with interesting stories to tell. Air travel isn't the same because the fellow passengers are mostly unfit for human companionship by the time they get squeezed into their allotted space having endured the TSA experience with the prospects of getting a bag of peanuts tossed at them.
Preferably drive, so that I can carry what I want, stop where, I please, arrive per schedule, and change plans as desired. Sometimes I am tired of being away. If I have flown, that's too bad. I have to stick it out.
I just completed about 1K rountdrip drive last week. The drive was tough, but the airline flight was going to be circuitous, with delays, and have late arrival times.
I absolutely hate to fly anymore. I had to fly on business for 10 years before 9/11 and it wasn't too horrible. The few flights I have taken after that have just been at least annoying but most of the time nerve racking or frustrating. I have been treated so badly by some TSA agents that I was almost in tears. And since I am handicapped it is hard for me to have to deal with shoes on and off and having to go through lines to be xrayed while my purse is lying at the end of the belt in full view of anyone wanting to grab it is just too stressful for me. I think they only way I would fly again would be if it was across water or to Alaska. So unless I can talk DH into driving across country I guess I won't be doing that.
Driving is so much better. Stop when you want, take anything with you that you want and don't have to worry about it fitting in 1 suitcase and a quart bag. Plus I have plenty of room to stretch out and eat what and when I want and listen to the music that I like not someone else's noise filtering out of their headphones. The older I get the less tolerant of ignorant people I become.
Yep. getting ready to drive to Atlanta from NYC in few days. Sure I could go to JFK. but flying has become a huge pain in the neck. If in a hurry I fly, but driving is fun.. Planes are like riding the NYC Subway, some people are just nasty, and the airlines let it go,poor hygiene, oversize carry on bags, air quality, bathrooms,etc. I'd like to see a minium dress code of at least pants and shoes for men, but that won't happen. Driving is hassle free, take want you want, see the country, spend the night in different towns. My average is about 6 hours on the road before I find a hotel. I could go longer and have but its more enjoyable to stop and explore an area. I think road trips can be a lasting memory, flying can be a lasting bad experience. The era of people with class flying is long gone, enter the hairy guy in shorts and flip flops, wearing a hoodie...
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