Drive or Fly?

[ericafny]

I posted before but also want to add some things. We have driven the past two times we went (we do not have children yet) so it was just me and my husband. We have a La Quinta Visa card and we earn free nights on that card. We have NEVER paid for a hotel room for our stopovers due to this and the La Quinta's are always clean and have free wi-fi and breakfast. We have stayed at 3 not too far from the interstate and I would highly recommend ANY of them We also have a "change jar" that I am sure everyone has, you know where you toss all your loose change from the day. We cash this in every year and that money is used for gas and tolls. The tolls stop just before Virginia going south and start once you hit D.C. (I think??) going north. We pack a cooler and plenty of snacks. We usually stop for lunch and dinner but there have been times we only stopped for dinner due to the snacks. In fact if you have the time you could probably pack lunch for the first day of driving and then on the way back stop at Publix and grab some lunch meats and stuff for the car ride, much cheaper than stopping at McDonalds and much healtheir too! Honestly, we hardly spend any money driving there and back. This would save us (1) the cost of flying from NY to Orlando during peak time (we are teachers and can only go during certain times) and (2) the HASSLE of the NY airports - do not get me started on that! Just my two cents (again)..

 

[kaligal]

My trip is about the same as yours.

I'll sometimes fly to save time, but I prefer to drive.

 

[mickeyluv'r]

using this analogy half of the total cost of your car will be spent on this trip....


I'm not trying to get into a flame war over this, just giving my take.

I'm not trying to get into a flame war either...but I do have to change the oil in my car every 3000 miles - so if I drive 1800 miles round trip to WDW - that's pretty much an oil change, which = $35. More if I have a mechanic look over the entire car. (I usually do before a long roadtrip.) Those are real expenses. I don't have to spend that on my car if I'm only going to the airport - at least in my case.

Let's say I spend $30,000 to buy my car from the dealer, and get 200,000 miles out of it. That still works out to about $.15 per mile - just on the cost of a car - nothing else (Oil, tires, regular fluid changes, etc) It's a little more than the $70 suitcase you mentioned. At $.15 per mile over 2000 miles we're talking about $300. If you only get 100,000 miles out of the car, it's $600 per 2000. No, you can't know how many miles you'll get out of your car in advance, or when the alternator is going to go - but you can - and probably should make some estimate for usage expenses. I'm not adding inthe cost of insurance, because that's a relatively fixed rate( though that cost rate is also tied to mileage).

Another way to consider is to look at the federal government reimbursement rate for work mileage. I think it's still at around $.49 per mile, which includes gas. That number seems a little high to me- but something between $.15 and $.49 per mile over nearly 2000 miles is something. At $.49 per mile (which would include gas), going 2000 miles would cost $980. Like I said, I think that's a little high, but I think it's fair to think the federal governement would have put some real math behind their rembursement rates.

OKay, here it is: http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/100715
the rate is $.50/mile for private vehicles in 2010. A second source for this figure is the IRS mileage rate. It is also $.50 per mile for business usage.