How much would you have to save to drive instead of fly?

[Dacky619]

In a few years we're going to want a car when we are down in Disney and that is when the driving savings will really add up for us. DW & I both work in education so our summer trips can be a few extra days to take time on the way down and back.

So for us, it is more a question on if we have the extra time. We have both done the drive from Philly-WDW and enjoyed it.

 

[Aliceacc]

It would certainly have to be enough to cover my bail. I'm pretty positive that I would kill one of my kids on the long ride back to NY.

Getting there would be all unicorns and rainbows as we anticipated our trip.

But driving home? With nothing left to look forward to but a 20 hour drive... IF we didn't hit traffic?? In the summer heat?

Nope, I'm pretty positive I would snap. It would be one too many 'MOM!!! Tell him/her to stop...." episodes and someone would call 911.

It's worth it for us to fly. JFK is half an hour away. I'm a good planner and I get decent prices for flights. For us it's absolutely part of the price of the trip.

 

[loveysbydesign]

The AAA estimates the cost of operating an average sedan at 60.8 cents per mile. Based on this metric, the cost of driving 2,000-mile roundtrip is $1,216.

Of course, some of costs are genuinely a function of driving -- gasoline, tires, maintenance, wear and tear against the finite life of the car, reduced resale value due to more miles on the odometer. Other costs, such as insurance, would probably be the same whether or not you used your car on such a trip. The important thing to consider is that cost of driving is not just the cost of gasoline.

The other big factor that's harder to quantify is your time. A flight (and time at the airport) uses a half day each way. Driving eats up substantially more time, and it's not fun after a few hours. If you stay in hotel in both directions, you have those costs, plus you've substantially reduced the time at your destination if your vacation time is fixed. But driving through the night while your body is telling your eyes to close is dangerous -- and very unpleasant.

You can tell I prefer flying.

That figure sure is high! We have a 2200 mile round trip from PA and it only costs around $500 in gas, depends on price at the time of the drive(we have a small minivan) and $200-$300 for lodging(we stay over 1 night each way) and food for 5 of us

 

[marymaya]

It would certainly have to be enough to cover my bail. I'm pretty positive that I would kill one of my kids on the long ride back to NY.

Getting there would be all unicorns and rainbows as we anticipated our trip.

But driving home? With nothing left to look forward to but a 20 hour drive... IF we didn't hit traffic?? In the summer heat?

Nope, I'm pretty positive I would snap. It would be one too many 'MOM!!! Tell him/her to stop...." episodes and someone would call 911.

It's worth it for us to fly. JFK is half an hour away. I'm a good planner and I get decent prices for flights. For us it's absolutely part of the price of the trip.

This exactly! We got a really good price on flights and are only spending 200 dollars more to fly than drive. We aren't too far from our airport either. Had the airfare been a little higher though, it wouldn't have been such an easy choice.

 

[Aliceacc]

Seriously, though, for us it's non-negotiable. I wouldn't even consider spending 20 hours each way in a car.

If it became too much of a financial hardship, we would cut other corners-- change our resort or even stay off site.

 

[kaytieeldr]

That figure sure is high! We have a 2200 mile round trip from PA and it only costs around $500 in gas, depends on price at the time of the drive(we have a small minivan) and $200-$300 for lodging(we stay over 1 night each way) and food for 5 of us

Because you're only calculating gas as the cost of driving. You're not considering all the other costs of operating your personal motor vehicle as described in the post you quoted.

 

[kydisneyfans]

I factor convenience into the total cost. Taking what I want, when I want, and how I want it in the back of my SUV is much different that loading mini liquids in see thru bags to be scanned while strangers grope me. The only place I want to take my shoes off is in the sand, not on pad at an airport where 5,000 others have stepped in bare feet the same morning.

We used to drive from the Canton-Massillon, OH area, it was 1,000 miles and 16 hours. Now we're 830 miles away in KY and the drive is 14ish hours. We met friends at Disney during spring break 2011 from our same subdivision. We drove, they flew. We left Disney at 6:00 AM Saturday and were home, unpacked, and grocery shopping at 8:00 PM. Their flight was delayed in Orlando, causing a missed connection flight in Chicago. We were home and ready for the week, they were fighting 2 tired kids at Ohare at the same time.

It would have to save a TON of money for me to fly to Florida. We went in April and spent $153 total on fuel. Taking luggage costs that much just in fees to fly.

 

[kydisneyfans]

Because you're only calculating gas as the cost of driving. You're not considering all the other costs of operating your personal motor vehicle as described in the post you quoted.

I agree to an extent, but you don't buy a vehicle to leave it set in your driveway. You are paying insurance regardless. An oil change is $20, wiper blades $4, set of tires every 60K miles $250, brakes are less than $200 once every 3 years or so. Depreciation doesn't matter if you drive the vehicle until it dies 15 years later.

 

[marymaya]

We factored in gas, food, hotel stays, portable DVD player (we would only buy it for that trip, not otherwise) and considered that we would have had to take off an extra day of work. Travel expenses were about 600
total for us (not counting the inconvenience of taking that extra day off) so with airfare being only 800 plus giving back my sanity it was a good choice for us. We have never flown as a family before so I could change my mind after our trip but for now I am excited. Driving vs flying also depends on how your family is with long road trips. We aren't good navigators and our kids hate being in the car.

 

[timmac]

The AAA estimates the cost of operating an average sedan at 60.8 cents per mile. Based on this metric, the cost of driving 2,000-mile roundtrip is $1,216.

Of course, some of costs are genuinely a function of driving -- gasoline, tires, maintenance, wear and tear against the finite life of the car, reduced resale value due to more miles on the odometer. Other costs, such as insurance, would probably be the same whether or not you used your car on such a trip. The important thing to consider is that cost of driving is not just the cost of gasoline.

The other big factor that's harder to quantify is your time. A flight (and time at the airport) uses a half day each way. Driving eats up substantially more time, and it's not fun after a few hours. If you stay in hotel in both directions, you have those costs, plus you've substantially reduced the time at your destination if your vacation time is fixed. But driving through the night while your body is telling your eyes to close is dangerous -- and very unpleasant.

Whenever any of the drive vs. fly comparisons come up on these boards, inevitably they are riddled with calculations that are at best incomplete, and often very idealistic. Bottom line is that the cost of gas is at most half the total cost of driving, probably less.

I think the time consideration is important too, alongside whether or not hotels might be involved. In the latter case, then each trip of the drive is actually taking multiple days of one's vacation. Of course, depending on how people split up driving, an exhausted driver might lose the better part of their first day upon arrival anyway. If you're someone with a limited vacation schedule, or your vacation time comes at something of a premium (magnified even more if you work on commission and/or self-employed, for instance), then the time-cost might be quite substantial.

Of course, the other side of it too, is that some people genuinely enjoy the driving element, and make that part of their vacation. Or, the converse, some people just don't like flying. That may figure into it as well.

One more consideration is risk management. While a lot can go wrong with delayed flights and the like, it's very rare for such an incident to not be resolved within less than a day. If a vehicle breaks down, and you find yourself needing complicated repairs when you're hundreds of miles from home, it could completely derail a vacation, and/or be a logistical nightmare in other ways.

To be fair, I definitely am of the opinion that I'd rather fly than drive, and have a bit of bias towards that side of it.

 

[joedplumber]

Because you're only calculating gas as the cost of driving. You're not considering all the other costs of operating your personal motor vehicle as described in the post you quoted.

AAA recommends using $.053 per mile for maintenance and tires when calculating driving costs.

 

[sam_gordon]

I factor convenience into the total cost. Taking what I want, when I want, and how I want it in the back of my SUV is much different that loading mini liquids in see thru bags to be scanned while strangers grope me. The only place I want to take my shoes off is in the sand, not on pad at an airport where 5,000 others have stepped in bare feet the same morning.

We used to drive from the Canton-Massillon, OH area, it was 1,000 miles and 16 hours. Now we're 830 miles away in KY and the drive is 14ish hours. We met friends at Disney during spring break 2011 from our same subdivision. We drove, they flew. We left Disney at 6:00 AM Saturday and were home, unpacked, and grocery shopping at 8:00 PM. Their flight was delayed in Orlando, causing a missed connection flight in Chicago. We were home and ready for the week, they were fighting 2 tired kids at Ohare at the same time.

It would have to save a TON of money for me to fly to Florida. We went in April and spent $153 total on fuel. Taking luggage costs that much just in fees to fly.

We flew out of MCO last month coming back from a cruise (also to LEX). We got to the airport at 10:30A (our scheduled flight was at 2, we went standby for an earlier flight). We pulled into our driveway in Richmond at 6PM. So less than 8 hours. The flight we ended up getting on at MCO left at 1.

In your example, you could have easily gotten tied up by construction, an accident, weather, or any number of things. It's going to be a rare circumstance when flying takes longer than driving (assuming almost anywhere outside of Florida.

How much is your time worth?

 

[joedplumber]

Absolutely not. I drove and it was only 11 hours for me. Going down was great. Coming back not so much. We left early in the morning thinking it would be better on the kiddos. I was so tired after a week of running around the parks and then leaving early. I said never again. It wasn't safe. I'm paying for 5 of us to fly in October and I consider it money well spent.

We always make it a point that the last day is a 1/2 day park and the other 1/2 resort/pool with an early bed time. This helps us avoid the tired ride home. lol

 

[timmac]

I can fly to MCO in about 2 1/2 hours.

I have to slightly disagree with this logic as well, despite loving flying over driving personally.

Time to get to airport may be up to an hour, depending on one's location (some people could be even further from the airport, though I would consider them to be outliers)

Getting at airport sufficient time before flight takes off: TSA recommends 90+ minutes for most domestic flights, depending on the airport.

Time to get off plane and collect luggage: 30 minutes maybe?

Time to get from MCO to WDW: about 30 minutes.

In other words, in addition the the duration of the flight, add another 3.5 hours. For myself (Boston area), that's a 3 hour flight, so door to door I'm looking at about 6-7 hours or so. In my case, this is still WAY better than driving in my opinion, but in the interest of trying to make fair and accurate comparisons...

 

[timmac]

You mention another factor I don't think was discussed: Airport proximity. If someone is close to a large airport that can get a direct flight at a reasonable price this makes a BIG difference. If the drive is hours to a secondary airport with a connection required, this will greatly increase the time and hassle involved.

OP, just figure out what works for you. Anything can work with a little planning and imagination. And if you drive, be careful and make sure the driver stays alert.

All good points I hadn't fully considered myself... it's hard to make a one-size-fits-all recommendation here.

(For me, I'm very close to Boston Logan, so flying pretty easily will beat the 20+ hour drive)

 

[timmac]

Depreciation doesn't matter if you drive the vehicle until it dies 15 years later.

Deprecation is not the best word to use here... the issue isn't so much that one is planning to sell their car at some point, but that a given car will only last so long, before it's dead.

For example, if you buy a car for $20,000, and get 200,000 miles of life out of it, then each mile driven represents 10 cents of the cost of the car itself. That's not gas, maintenance, or any of the fixed costs (which shouldn't be part of the calculation anyway). Now, of course, what type of car one has, and how long it can reasonably be expected to last might change that figure up or down a bit, but the point is, there's cost there, and when talking about a trip to WDW, most of us are looking at distances where that cost becomes material.

 

[richmo]

This is one of those things that is different for everyone. To me, although I always like to save some $, time is even more valuable. If I have enough time off and the cost of flying is significantly more than the 1000 mile drive each way, I'd consider driving it. I'd also take a look at car rentals at home... a trip to Disney and back is a measurable percentage of a car's lifespan.

But, driving is also an expense on time. My guideline is about 10 days. If my trip is less than that, I'm very unlikely to drive it and if a week or under, I won't. Once a trip gets up around 2 weeks, there's definitely an argument for making the drive...but I'll still fly, if feasible.

 

[joedplumber]

For us we lease and get 15K miles per year allowance. We do this as to not worry about significantly going over the allowance. Leasing also makes calculating a trip very easy. It is simply the gas for the vehicle portion of it, the wear/tear is part of the lease. With the 4 different vehicles we have leased (2 GM & 2 Honda) we typically are +/- 500 miles to the allowance when we turn it in, and we have never gotten hit with any other fees other than if we go over. But we don't lose to much sleep over going over 500 miles as its only $.17 per mile which is $85.

Now that being said, we only drive if the cost savings are greater than $800, otherwise we fly. Sometimes we go just because there are great deals on flying.

We are also a road trip kind of family and the drive is definitely part of the vacation. Plus, we overkill the kids with things to do on the ride. Last time when we got to our stopover for the night and the kids were upset that we had got there already as their movie had not finished. lol

Lastly, many kudos to my DW as she has no issue splitting the driving 50/50 with me which is a huge help.

 

[kaytieeldr]

I agree to an extent, but you don't buy a vehicle to leave it set in your driveway. You are paying insurance regardless. An oil change is $20, wiper blades $4, set of tires every 60K miles $250, brakes are less than $200 once every 3 years or so. Depreciation doesn't matter if you drive the vehicle until it dies 15 years later.

One round trip to Walt Disney World in my case would equal 101 round trips to work. That's five months of transportation I won't get from my car when I need it if I give in and drive. Which I won't but stil. And every mile driven increases the chance for an accident.

AAA recommends using $.053 per mile for maintenance and tires when calculating driving costs.

Which is a small portion of the total number Horace Horsecollar posted earlier:
" AAA estimates the cost of operating an average sedan at 60.8 cents per mile."
Not counting the $.608 per mile while at WDW, my cost to drive would be ~$802. I can fly four people round trip for that, and save at least 128 travel hours (16 per person in each direction).

 

[dvczerfs]

geez, meals, aaa, all these calculations, times, flights, interstates.

how many of you take your kids out of school for these vacation?

do you use a stoller?

how bout them new drink cups coming!!!! now what????

is your son still using the womens room at 10 years old?


what else can we argue about?????