Flying vs. Driving...What price difference makes it worth it to you to drive?

[vicki_c]

I just did the online gas calculator yesterday in response to this thread - it said about $325-350 I think for gas - DC to Orlando for my 2005 Honda Odyssey. Your amount would be similar, maybe a bit better with a newer vehicle, so your estimate is probably not far off.

 

[sam_gordon]

One thing to keep in mind... depending on how you have been checking airline pricing, while you may be able to get $188RT for 1 or 2 people, you may not be able to get that rate for all six. I still think flying would be the best choice.

 

[pixeegrl]

We are about 14 hours away and by the time I factored in gas food and hotels it would only cost us about $300 more to fly since we had some left over points from Southwest. I would much rather catch that nonstop out of Norfolk (2 hours away) than spend that many hours in the car. I'm just glad I talked hubby into it 'cause he didn't care either way

 

[reiella]

For us, it's not about the price point, so much as the reality that we're a 24hr road trip from WDW. We do have an option of flying out from a local regional instead of driving to a hub though, and we usually pursue that option.

It costs 400$ for to fly out locally [round trip], but it saves us a 4 hour road trip [twice] and other travel hassles [I think it came out to a net 200$ increase once accounting for gas and parking]. However, one difference is since we're leaving on early flight from a regional, it's not even possible for us to arrive at the aiport 2 hours before flight. The terminal doesn't unlock until an hour before .

 

[justussix]

This is everything that is included in the mileage deduction:

•Gasoline purchases
•Oil and maintenance expenses
•Interest expenses on the vehicle loan
•Or, lease payments for the tax year
•Annual depreciation on the vehicle
•Registration fees
•Insurance
•Repairs
•Tolls
•Tires
•Garage rent
•Parking fees

The reason I say this is all included in the mileage deduction is because these are the items you can deduct if you choose to deduct actual expenses vs. mileage if you would come out ahead that way. The primary difference is if you hold the vehicle on balance sheet as part of your business assets (deduct actual expenses) or use a personal vehicle for business purposes (mileage deduction).

I've bolded the items that have little to no impact on a drive for vacation (we're going to own the vehicle anyway and deal with insurance, registration, aquisition costs, etc). I've italicized the items that are of negligible impact (the actual trip down is of minimal impact on the need to replace/repair these items).

Figure gas is a certain expense. Tolls are a certain expense. Costs maybe 1/2 an oil change. Tires can last 60,000 miles or better in some cases. This is a negligible impact. Does it speed up use? Sure, but you're talking about a 4% wear factor on a round trip for 2,500 miles. I can get a good set of tires for $600.

$24 wear on the tires
$14 for half an oil change (usually go 5,000 miles or more between)
$20 for tolls (estimate)
$100 for food on the road
$127 for hotel (we only use one night and marathon the trip back)
$487 for gas ($4.00 gallon)

For us - $772 total round trip. Yes, there's transmission fluid and wiper fluid and wipers, etc. But this is all normal use stuff that the trip itself has minimal impact on and in fact wiper fluid is included in our oil change as a top off - so no worries.

If plane tickets are $1,588 (not counting for any parking fee at the airport, food during travel, car rental, baggage fees, etc.) - I'm conservatively saving over $800.00 by driving. And that's at the ticket prices cited above with no other expenses.

For two people at today's gas prices, flying might come out ahead. But for six (or more) - driving is certainly more cost effective.

Other costs are more opportunity cost than anything. Such as making it to church on Sunday morning vs. still being on the road. Or using an extra vacation day to depart earlier.

Obviously renting a vehicle for the drive completely changes the equation and if we had to pay $900 to rent a vehicle for the drive, on top of the above expenses - we'd just fly.

 

[sam_gordon]

For two people at today's gas prices, flying might come out ahead. But for six (or more) - driving is certainly more cost effective.

What you're not factoring in though is time. How much time do you save by flying? How much is that time worth? Do you need to take extra vacation days in order to drive?

In my opinion, if you're going to factor in the costs for oil change, tires, etc, you should factor in the time expense.

 

[justussix]

What you're not factoring in though is time. How much time do you save by flying? How much is that time worth? Do you need to take extra vacation days in order to drive?

In my opinion, if you're going to factor in the costs for oil change, tires, etc, you should factor in the time expense.

I factored those. Put them down as opportunity costs, or intangibles. That's a personal decision.

An extra vacation day can have a dollar value - but only the individual could state whether or not they'd take that day anyway and what they would do with it. If your trip goes from weekend to weekend - would you really use any extra time off work? Leave on a Friday after work and get there Saturday afternoon vs. fly out Saturday morning.

If flying, would you just buy an extra resort day with that time and actually spend even more money? What if your trip includes a paid holiday and you have the extra time whether you want it or not? Also some work schedules allow people to just switch days with a co-worker w/o sacrificing any vacation hours to get the extra time.


Based on our trips - it typically doesn't cost any extra vacation time and if travel time were shorter, we'd likely just add time there or down time at home waiting to leave.

For others, the journey down is part of the vacation and they actually enjoy the long drive and the scenery along the way. For others (rational or not), the anxiety associated with flying isn't worth the time saved.

 

[bdklein]

Thanks for all of the great feedback. Sorry to have posted and ran. To answer some questions:

-We are a family of 6

Flying
-Lowest ticket from DCA-MCO is currently at $188, including taxes.
-We would need a full-size SUV/mini-van; I'm budgeting $400 for the rental car & gas when we get to Orlando.
So, total for flying is roughly $1528....let's say $1600.
We would not need to pay to park...I have family in DC who can handle drop-off/pick-up. The airport is approx 20 minutes from my relative's home.

Driving
We would not drive our own vehicle. We would rent a full-size SUV/mini-van. Cost is roughly $900. I'm budgeting $300 for gas (that's probably too low). Also $200 for hotels (there and back) and $100 for food on the road.
Driving cost at $1500.


I'm now realizing the price savings is even less!!! Am I missing something?

Do you have to have a car/van?? Why not stay on-site and rely on Disney tramnsportaton? And put the $400 in ur pocket.

 

[LekiaHall]

Do you have to have a car/van?? Why not stay on-site and rely on Disney tramnsportaton? And put the $400 in ur pocket.

That would likely cost us even more. I've booked a 2 bedroom unit at Bonnet Creek for $731. I doubt I can find a comparable price staying on-site (and if I can, pls let me know about it!).

 

[kydisneyfans]

Interesting discussion-

Is luggage included in the $188, if not add a bunch more dollars to the fly column.

$200 for 2 hotel nights seems high, I normally get one on Hotwire for around $65 that includes breakfast while on the road with the iphone.

Food costs are wiped out in my opinion, you're going to eat whether flying and at Disney earlier or stopped at a Cracker Barrel in South Carolina. I don't figure that into cost of driving vs flying.

Gas is a huge variance, we paid between 3.25 and 3.79 last week. The further north we got the higher the price, with a huge jump between TN and KY. We have budgeted $225 for our October trip averaging $3.50 a gallon. If we spend more on fuel, we spend less on food.

No matter how I figure things for our 13 hour drive, driving always wins. Figuring the drive to the airport (30 mins Lex, 1 hr 15 mins to Louisville or Cincy), 2 hours early, travel time (hard to find direct flights, usually 5-6 hours with layover), the departure and travel to Disney, it may save 2-3 hours on each end of the trip, which is not worth the additional $400-600 cost in my book. I also like the convenience of taking what I want on vacation, not what the government allows.

 

[kydisneyfans]

I also believe you could rent the van/SUV for much less than $900 for the week on the driving side. My last price check was closer to $500 during a high demand week here in KY. Try using some codes from mousesavers for national/alamo.

 

[LekiaHall]

Interesting discussion-

Is luggage included in the $188, if not add a bunch more dollars to the fly column.

$200 for 2 hotel nights seems high, I normally get one on Hotwire for around $65 that includes breakfast while on the road with the iphone.

Food costs are wiped out in my opinion, you're going to eat whether flying and at Disney earlier or stopped at a Cracker Barrel in South Carolina. I don't figure that into cost of driving vs flying.

Gas is a huge variance, we paid between 3.25 and 3.79 last week. The further north we got the higher the price, with a huge jump between TN and KY. We have budgeted $225 for our October trip averaging $3.50 a gallon. If we spend more on fuel, we spend less on food.

No matter how I figure things for our 13 hour drive, driving always wins. Figuring the drive to the airport (30 mins Lex, 1 hr 15 mins to Louisville or Cincy), 2 hours early, travel time (hard to find direct flights, usually 5-6 hours with layover), the departure and travel to Disney, it may save 2-3 hours on each end of the trip, which is not worth the additional $400-600 cost in my book. I also like the convenience of taking what I want on vacation, not what the government allows.

Yes, I didn't factor in checked bags. We flew two years ago and we had one checked bag and all of my children carried their belongings in their own carry-on. We didn't need to pack enough for all days because our condo had a washer/dryer in the unit. The same applies this year. That's a huge help when packing!

The hotel cost factors in all 6 of us. I'm sure I could probably get it a bit cheaper, but places that are less than $60 or so a night are not....desirable.

Actual, food would cost more on the road for us. If we fly, we'd eat before we go and wouldn't eat again until we've landed and have gone grocery shopping. No eating at the airport (except maybe a small snack). If we drove, I'd have to deal with dinner & breakfast, both ways. Easily $100 for my family.

With the size vehicle we would have to rent, it would take about $75 for a full tank. And we'd need gas during our trip. We drove down (with my Dad) three years ago in a GMC Tahoe and spent about $300 on gas when all was said and done. And that was with his personal vehicle. With the rental car, we'll also have to top up when returning it.

I also believe you could rent the van/SUV for much less than $900 for the week on the driving side. My last price check was closer to $500 during a high demand week here in KY. Try using some codes from mousesavers for national/alamo.

Cars in my neck of the woods (DC area) are considerably higher. I checked these prices through Priceline. It would be *great* to find something cheaper but for the size vehicle we need, it's not happening.


As you can see, I've talked myself into flying!!

 

[sam_gordon]

No matter how I figure things for our 13 hour drive, driving always wins. Figuring the drive to the airport (30 mins Lex, 1 hr 15 mins to Louisville or Cincy), 2 hours early, travel time (hard to find direct flights, usually 5-6 hours with layover), the departure and travel to Disney, it may save 2-3 hours on each end of the trip, which is not worth the additional $400-600 cost in my book. I also like the convenience of taking what I want on vacation, not what the government allows.

I'm close to you. I disagree with you only saving 2-3 hours on each end though. Lexington airport only requires about 90 minutes (to be TOTALLY safe, you can probably get by with 60), but with a 30 minute drive, you have two hours before the flight, a one hour flight to Atlanta, say a one hour layover, one hour to Orlando, than call it an hour until you get to Disney. That's 6 hours. Compared to driving (13 hours), you're saving 7 hours... that's almost an entire park day. Granted, you might have airline delays, but you could also have accidents slowing down your drive.

As long as you don't have to rent a car for the drive, driving will just about always be cheaper. But flying will generally be faster. So you need to compare the $ savings to the time savings. To me, I'm willing to spend even $600 for my family to get more than 10 hours (round trip) of "park time". If it was $600 for each member of my family, I'd drive.

 

[hearts8701]

we drive from chicago mainly because we like to drive rather than fly here are a few websites to help if you do drive
drive or fly calculator
BeFrugal.com’s new web-based Fly or Drive Calculator compares time and cost of flying versus driving, and provides consumers personalized calculations for any trip
http://www.befrugal.com/tools/fly-or-drive-calculator/
great website for those driving to disney or any destination type in your starting destination and your ending destination, and it will find ALL SORTS of things for you to do, see, eat, play along the way
http://www.onthewayapp.com/

 

[sam_gordon]

we drive from chicago mainly because we like to drive rather than fly here are a few websites to help if you do drive
drive or fly calculator
BeFrugal.com’s new web-based Fly or Drive Calculator compares time and cost of flying versus driving, and provides consumers personalized calculations for any trip
http://www.befrugal.com/tools/fly-or-drive-calculator/

Just for fun, I ran this website for a "typical" (for us) June week long trip. It came up with a $1500 cost to fly with a 5 1/2 hour door-to-door time frame. Driving was $766, with a 27 hour door-to-door time frame. Obviously it left time for an overnight stop.

Am I willing to spend $800 more to have 44 hours (almost two entire days) more at Disney? Actually, as pointed out, it would cost more because you'd have two more nights of hotel at Disney. Anyway, for me, yes.

There is no one right answer to this question. It depends on how long the drive is, do you need to rent a car to make the drive, do you need to rent onsite, and how valuable your time is.

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

I won't drive more than 12 hours. I'd fly for sure then. Once I ended up with a 14 hour unplanned drive when it was supposed to be 12 and it was a pain. I was by myself, extra crabby and really sore from sitting since the extra hours were spent sitting at a standstill in traffic.

It's become not about price for me but it's about time in the car.

I used to do the 22 hour drive from Georgia to MN every other year but reached the point 4 years ago when I just couldn't sit comfortably or stand being cooped up in the car that long with the family. We were all just about ready to strangle each other.

I will put off a trip if I can't afford to fly rather than drive that far ever again.

 

[mastermind307]

I was happy to come across this thread as I'm and having the same dilema.
I am thinking about flying for our June 2013 trip. The main reason is because my husband will not be going, it will just me, my DD6 and my mother. I worry about something happening to the car. If my husband is with me, he knows about cars and would know what to do.
Driving would be 16 hours. We have driven many times to visit my MIL in southern GA which is 12 hours away. I just don't feel comfortable driving that far without my hubby. I'm still waiting for Southwest to come out for airfare for June before I make my final decision. Right now I've found airfare for between $940-$1100 for the 3 of us and that doesn't include bags. Which is one reason I'm looking at Southwest, no baggage fees and they have direct flight from Indy to Orlando. I'm hoping for flights less than a $1000. We might end up driving if it cost more than that.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I factored those. Put them down as opportunity costs, or intangibles. That's a personal decision.

An extra vacation day can have a dollar value - but only the individual could state whether or not they'd take that day anyway and what they would do with it. If your trip goes from weekend to weekend - would you really use any extra time off work? Leave on a Friday after work and get there Saturday afternoon vs. fly out Saturday morning.

If flying, would you just buy an extra resort day with that time and actually spend even more money? What if your trip includes a paid holiday and you have the extra time whether you want it or not? Also some work schedules allow people to just switch days with a co-worker w/o sacrificing any vacation hours to get the extra time.


Based on our trips - it typically doesn't cost any extra vacation time and if travel time were shorter, we'd likely just add time there or down time at home waiting to leave.

For others, the journey down is part of the vacation and they actually enjoy the long drive and the scenery along the way. For others (rational or not), the anxiety associated with flying isn't worth the time saved.

Why would you assume flyers leave on a Sat morning? We leave Fri evening also except we're in FL in time to watch the 11pm news Friday, all comfortably resting. We can go to the parks well rested by park opening Sat am.
You say adding another resort day would just cost more but then we'd have a longer Disney vacation! Is that not an option however you choose to travel? You're paying more because you're getting more! And those additional park days added to your ticket really don't cost much more. Compare the cost of a 7 day ticket to a 10 day. Those extra 3 days only add $12/day to each ticket.
Assuming the same weekend to weekend timeframe, as a flyer I'd still have the option to spend the same # nights at a Disney hotel. If I did, just for the sake of keeping # of hotel nights equal to a driver, my Fri night would not be spent in a car, I'd be home in my own comfy bed. Assuming we both leave Saturday evening to go home, I'd also have an extra day at home at the end of my vacation to unpack, do laundry, grocery shop, read mail, etc with my Sat night spent in my own bed, not in a car.
So when you pull up in your driveway with all of these chores still waiting for you, I would be done mine after a good night's sleep.

OR

I could be off the same 9 days, cram it from Fri night leaving home, to Sunday night returning, same as a driver must, but I will have spent 8.5 days in the parks.

In order for a driver to have 8.5 days in a WDW park one would need at least 11 days off. That means 2 more vacation days for dh & I.
They are priceless. That doesn't even factor in how grouchy we'd all be spending so much time in the car or the time spent cleaning out my minivan once we're home.


Also when people gripe about having to arrive at the airport 2 hrs before the flight, half of that time is spent relaxing at the gate, usually on a tablet or laptop, not stressing out over traffic.

 

[Our 2 Princesses]

we drive from chicago mainly because we like to drive rather than fly here are a few websites to help if you do drive
drive or fly calculator
BeFrugal.com’s new web-based Fly or Drive Calculator compares time and cost of flying versus driving, and provides consumers personalized calculations for any trip
http://www.befrugal.com/tools/fly-or-drive-calculator/
great website for those driving to disney or any destination type in your starting destination and your ending destination, and it will find ALL SORTS of things for you to do, see, eat, play along the way
http://www.onthewayapp.com/

Thank you for sharing these. Can't wait to use them!

 

[DanG07]

It seems that most people on this discussion thread are basing there opinons of whether to drive or fly as simply a financial decision. Some people hate to drive and will never drive unless the savings are overwhelming in their favor to drive based on the time-value-of-money argument and the hate-to-be-stuck-in-a-car-for-so-long argument. My family loves to drive yet I agree with all that driving "wastes" more time than flying. However, the people in the flying camp do not factor in the following preferences of those who like to drive: 1) the road trips are just as fun as WDW if planned properly (checking out new stops/places is fun); 2) we love having our minivan at WDW rather than renting one (just a comfort level thing); 3) we can leave on our road trip whenever we want, usually as soon as I get back from work on the day before our trip; 4) we hate airport delays especially with our four young children (on a trip to CA once, we were stuck in the airport for over 8 hours due to inclement weather in Chicago); and 5) we love to take whatever we can fit in our minivan on our road trips. These preferences are worth the tradeoff of "wasting" more time in driving.

For us, flying would cost more not just in tickets, but in renting a minivan at WDW as we hate taking the buses (again, our preference). Also, we would most likely go Saturday to Saturday anyway, so adding the Friday before the trip and the Sunday after the trip does not really change our vacation time from work.