My parents use to drive with me and my sister from Seattle. Thas was over 20 years ago when gas was cheaper and airfare (relative to the value of the dollar back then) was more expensive than it is today.
Whomever said driving to LA straight-thru was easy must not ever need any sleep. I tried it once a long time ago with a buddy of mine coming back from the Rose Bowl. Took about 20 hours with a few stop-offs for food, bathroom, stretch legs, and a couple speeding tickets (one for each of us.) By the time we got to Seattle we were both halucinating from the lack of sleep (you can try but can't REALLY sleep in a car bombing down I-5 at 70. I'd say a single driver trying to make that trip straight through is foolish. If you try it tell me when so I know to not be on I-5 at the same time. Was kind of cool/surreal though watching the sun set and then come up again while driving. I would never try it again, even with another driver unless I was so poor I couldn't afford a night at Motel 6. It is Federal Law that truck drivers can't drive for more than 11 hours at a time and then they need at least 10 hours of downtown inbetween. There's a good reason for that law and they are professional drivers.
I think the two biggest questions are, do you have time to stretch it out to 3 days or so so you can go down 101 and Highway 1 and stop and enjoy some sites? Then the drive may be worth doing assuming flying is not out of the question. If you are on a really tight budget then I guess you may not have a choice but when figuring costs, you'd be surprised to find how many considerations there are. (We are having a big long discussion on this in the Budget forum.)
Here were my estimates from Seattle:
I just booked tickets a week ago from Seattle to LA for $218/person. Figure the same $43 each way for town car from the airport to the hotel. The drive is 1162 miles. We would drive our 2004 Honda Pilot which gets 24 MPG highway and has 30K miles (need these stats to determine gas and depreciation costs.) Everything below is X 2 to account for the trip there then back.
Gas - 2 x $121 = $242
Motel = 2 x $110 = $220
Meals eating out for 4 - Breakfast 2 x $25, Lunch 2 x 25, Dinner, 2 x 60 (I tip well and we would like a decent sit down dinner for 4 at the end of the day) = $220 (less probably the $25 cost of food I would spend anyway sitting at home) = $195
Depreciation - I'd say the car will depreciate an extra $500 at least by putting the extra 2,200 miles on it. Probably more. If you car has high mileage you can disregard depreciation.
Lost Opportunity Cost/Increased Risk - I like spending a lot of time with my children, although in a pool, at the beach, or in the park. Not in a car. I like driving and am a good driver but know the statistics and prefer to be on a plane (the stat is driving compared to flying mile for mile is 65 times more likely to result in a fatality.) The flight is about 2.5 hours. We get to the airport 1.5 hours ahead of time and the airport is 20 min from my house and 40 min from the park. So we are looking at a total of 8 hours travel time to fly versus about 18x2 = 36 hours of driving = 28 hours of extra time in a car over the time spent flying, in the airport and going to/from airport.
Then the biggie which most people put no monetary value on -- their free time. If you enjoy every minute of the drive and will be seeing other sites, then you can throw this out the window. But if you are just driving straight there to get there as fast as you can, then this is a realistic consideration that is often overlooked. Think of it this way, at what point do you pay someone else to paint your house (assuming painting your house isn't one of your favorite things to do) ? $40/hr? $30/hr? $20/hr? $10/hr. Let's suppose you do it yourself unless you can find someone dirt cheap for $15/hr. Then one might say, that's how much you value your free time - $15/hr.
If someone asked me you can either drive down I-5 for 28 hours for free, playing games in the car and singing songs part of the time, and listening to your children (and sometimes your wife) whine and bicker the other part of the time, or you can pay me $x and the drive will take 1 second and you can spend the saved time swimming and riding rides with your kids (or making money) I would say yes to paying up to a maximum of $40/hr to get that time back for other more enjoyable things (yes it's much more than $15/hr but that's my personal value on my free time which relates to my income.)
So my cost of lost time or cost of lost opportunity as I call it for ME personally is $40/hr = $1,120.
Most of the hotels in the
Disneyland area cost $10-$15/day for parking and I'm going to be there 4 days.
Parking - $40
So total costs in this scenario are:
Driving = $242+$220+$195+$500+1120+$40 = $2,317
Flying = $218x4 + $43x2 = $958
So driving, TO ME IN MY CASE, is $1,358 more expensive than flying.
Now some people may be calling BS on that whole cost of lost opportunity thing and don't mind the extra 28 hours in the car. Even if I placed no value on the lost time, driving still costs me $239 more than flying for a family of 4 if I can get the air tickets for $218/person.
I'd probably want to check out some sites around LA, so say I rent a car for a week. I can get a fullsize for about $225. So essentially even if I rent a car, put no value on the time lost sitting an extra 28 hours in the car, it's a wash! I'll gladly fly in that scenario.
When I was a kid, we did have fun playing games in the car, stopping at the waterslide park in Redding, etc., but given the opportunity to fly the decision is pretty easy for me. I've seen the I-5 corridor from Seattle to LA enough in my life - it's not that exciting. The 101 and Highway 1 going down Californing is beautiful though. If you can't fly though for some other reason than money (phobia, airsick, other special needs), then enjoy your drive!
