I'm being inspired to provide levity. Keep in mind, I agree 100% with BC's points.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both flying and driving; however, if you drive...
Leave when you want.
I LIKE sitting in an airport for 2 hours only to be told my flight has been delayed due to some esoteric mechanical malfunction that they insist doesn't compromise the aircraft and that they WILL fix prior to take off. It's invigorating and it give me some time to read "War and Peace" or "Anna Karinina".
Take whatever you want with you.
Careful. Your van might decide to charge you a baggage surcharge of $15 per bag for the extra space you're taking up in a cavernous area completely and totally unused for any other purpose that can easily accomodate 3 or 4 bags per person....AND if it think's your bag is too "fat" it might really lay into you! Well...our van would. It's cheeky that way. She also insists that we call her "Lucy" (at least, so my wife tells me...she's the only one who can get a straight word out of her!)
Bathroom breaks in areas bigger than an apartment pantry.
Again...airline bathrooms are great! I wish I could use one all the time. I'd be a world class gymnast with excellent flexibility. Hmmm...I think I'm on to something: Airline bathroom Yoga. Excuse me...need to go make and market a DVD. Anyone host infomercials??
You've obviously never been in a car with my wife driving...or with my 5 kids getting antsy.
You don't have to take off your shoes.
You don't? But....wait.....you can wear shoes IN the car? You don't have to take them off so you don't mess up the carpet...having to switch to "driving shoes/slippers"? Hold on just a minute....
"LUCY!!! YOU GOT SOME 'SPLAININ' TO DO!!!"
You don't have to lock your luggage.
Until you get to bell services....who wants those people knowing what freaks my family are??
Only you can lose your luggage.
Tip: Remember to close the tailgate of your van prior to trying to leave. I made that mistake once. ONCE.
Although it fits in your trunk it may not fit in the overhead bin.
That sounds dirty.
You can stick your head out of the window.
Yeah, OK..you got me there. I tried that on a plane once....the stewardess started yelling something about "pressurized cabins", "sky marshalls" and a bunch of other things like "catestrophic ground approaching event". I guess that really WOULD be one advantage to driving. Though, on the flip side, you'd have to spend a fortune in toothpicks (to get out the bugs) and hair gel (to fix the "damage").
C'mon...who doesn't like a good run across a crowded concourse in the morning. Think of it as "stretching your legs, briskly, with lots of pressure". It's a good constitutional!
Snacks are unlimited and come in large sizes.
Wait...you can eat and drink in the car? That's allowed and doesn't violate the "carpet warrenty" that came with the car, which expressly prohibits all food and drink within 10 feet of the vehicle on penalty of spontaneous combustion??
"LUCY!!! YOU GOT SOME 'SPLAININ' TO DO!!!"
Beverages from your cooler.
See previous comment. Food, drinks, AND a cooler? With ice in it? That could leak??
You decide who travels with you.
"You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but...."
oh, wait, wrong quote
"You can pick your friends, but you can't pick family".
If you sit in the back of the car, you can de-car in about 5 seconds; if you sit in the back of the plane it might take 15 minutes to de-plane.
We travel with 2 adults, and 3 kids.
a) it takes us a LOT longer than 5 seconds to "de-car"
b) by the end of a plane ride with our kids, no matter what our location, we always seem to be urged to "de-plane" very quickly. Huh...go figure.
You can stop whenever you want to.
With 3 kids, and their inability to coordinate their bladders....I'm not sure I see that as an advantage. At least, in the air, we're still moving while they pee. We tried that, once, while driving. ONCE!*
*(in the interest of not having DCF showing up on my doorstep....we didn't, really)
A flock of birds can't shut down your engine (but they can mess up your windshield).
True story. My father was driving his bright red pickup truck down the road one day, and I was a passenger. A bird decided to play chicken (pun intended) with his truck. You'd THINK the truck would win, right? Well, it was a BIG bird, long beak (Granville State forest...I was young, don't know what kind of bird it was...but I think it was a heron, or something similar). I suppse the truck did win (the bird died, the truck was repaired), but the radiator might beg to differ.
You can drive your vehicle into the MK parking lot.
But then you miss the "community spirit" of being packed onto a bus with 120 of your closest friends, in the dead of summer, where you quickly find that good old "Uncle Earl" forgot to use the speed stick that morning. I mean...you just can't BUY memories like that in your air conditioned, seat guarenteed, uncrowded, storage rife, personally controlled vehicle! C'mon now!
Freedom is an illusion perpetrated by the capitalistic mega-corporations in order to ensure that the "slaves" (that's us) continue to work hard and buy stuff to fuel their greed. Don't buy it!
OK, with that out of the way:
We've driven about 6 times...some with kids,some without.
We chose to fly THIS upcoming trip because:
1) Airfare was ridiculously cheap. We paid, for a direct flight, $168 per person. All told, we spent $840 on tickets...we'll spend another $75 for our baggage. We would likely spend around $600 ($300 gas, $200 hotel, $100 food) to drive round trip + close to 40 hours in our car. In THIS case (and it's the first time in awhile), the value for me leaned toward flying. That has NOT been the case in the past. Typically airfare has been closer to $1200+ for us to fly as a family.
2) Our traveling party size now exceeds the capacity of our van. And keep in mind, THIS is the more important of the 2 reasons. My mom and step dad are coming with us this trip...we won't all fit in our van with luggage and 3 kids (1 in carseat, 2 in boosters). My mom is NOT a good night driver...sun goes down, she's useless. My wife is NOT a great highway driver. South of Richmond...she's fine. North..not so much. Now, I'm a pretty good driver who has a lot of road trips under his belt..but I can't operate 2 motor vehicles at the same time. And trying to coordinate precise driving times so that we're either in daylight for the whole trip, or at least don't hit darkness north of Richmond....too much effort. We thought about it...I started to try to work it out...and we saw cheap airfare which I jumped on.
FYI: We've already decided we're driving NEXT trip...just because we want to....unless airfare is "free" or actually less than our total out of pocket driving costs would be (which I can't imagine). It saves us a few bucks, AND we seem to actually LIKE the drive, as a family.
I really don't want to. Talk me out of it! Talk me out of it!!
) DH was out the door quite early this morning in the hopes that he gets home at a decent time!
(who, btw, is thankful he has a wife that finds these things, umm, endearing!)
. We'll be stopping at the rest area just over the Kentucky border in a bit to have our packed dinner and stretch a bit. DH will decide then if he wants me to take over the driving. Right now I refuse-I don't do traffic very well 
