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Usually if its around 10 hours to the destination, we choose to fly. 8 is pushing it, but we deal. How far does the distance have to be for you to choose air travel instead of driving?
It has to be across the pond. If I can drive it, I'm not flying.
This really depends a lot on how much time you have, and whether driving would be part of the experience, and whether you need that car at the other end. We drive all the way from Toronto to Florida, for instance, but it's part of the experience, and we take 2.5 days to do it.
We also have the luxury of taking a train at times. Took the train to Montreal this summer rather than drive or fly, it's about a 6 hour drive on dull freeways, not pleasant at all.
But we drive to our summer home often four or five times a summer, and it's 5 hours each way. But driving is imperative for this trip, and it's quite pretty, although we do it mostly on "automatic pilot" now.
Thought of driving to NYC a couple of years back, but ended up flying--just not worth the tedium.
Last edited by Wwanderer; 11-03-2012 at 06:56 PM..
Over 6 hours or so driving. I live in Charlotte and DC is just inside the threshold of debating whether to drive or fly. The big problem is that once I get there it is so much easier to have a car to tool around and I don't want to get a rental. Also, I've been delayed so many times flying in/out of DC that driving is the sure way to get there.
For me, this only really matters within the domestic U.S. where driving would be an option to begin with.
That said, it depends. For either of us, a drive "home" to where we have family is about 8 hours or so. If we are going for an extended period of time (such as the holidays) we sometimes choose to drive. But if we just want to go for a long weekend, we'll just hop on a plane. There is no set distance, it really depends on where we are going and how much time we have. We drive about 7 hours each way to and from the Outer Banks for a week-long vacation every summer. They don't have a major airport there and we have stuff we need to haul with us, therefore, flying is not an option. If we could get away with a suitcase or two and could easily get there by air, we probably would fly.
The one nice thing about where we live (Charlotte) is that CLT is a major USAirways hub, so getting a direct flight anywhere is not usually an issue.
Now that I have a family of four it comes down to cost of ticket, amount of time I have and will I need a car at my destination
If I have a few extra days (like a 10 day vacation including a long holiday weekend) then will prob drive up to 10-12 hours for my destination.
I live in NC and it is 1 hour to the Charlotte airport. So that factors into the deal as well.
We drove to Ottawa and Toronto on 2 of our vacations. Took our time visiting interesting cities on the way up but usually bust it on the way home and try to do it in one day home. But our trip to Disney was only 5 days so we flew even though it is a 10 hr drive. Def flew to San Diego!
We are actually headed to Germany for a year and looking forward to using the train system but again with 4 kids Die Bahn will have to be cheaper than renting a car and petrol! (or cheap airfare)
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