What would you do? Fly or Drive?

[psummrs]

What would you do in the situation I'm in. I am planning a trip next year during our college spring break. Me and my girlfriend go to Virginia Tech so we will be leaving from Blacksburg, southwest corner of VA.

I priced out the tickets and through Disney out of Roanoke the tickets will be approximately $650 for the both of us, and outside of Disney the prices go up from there. If we drive assuming avg mpg etc, and a hotel on the way down it will be a total of $260.

The only problem is car boredom and my girlfriend is not exactly a person for long car trips, she has to drive from northern NJ every year for school (approx 8 hours). I'm not exactly a huge fan of driving either but the money saving side of it is enticing.

Any advice would be appreciated!

 

[MrsNick]

I just googled directions from Blacksburg to Disney World and it says the trip will take you about 11 hours. I am normally a huge fan of flying, but in your case, the driving is very doable in one day. Especially since flying doesn't save you as much time as it would if you were travelling from further away.

Let's assume that you give yourself an hour to drive to Roanoke. You also need to be at the airport two hours prior to departure. You will be in the air for aprx. two hours. It will take you 20 - 30+ minutes to deplane and get your bags from baggage claim. Then, assume another 30 - 90 minutes to get from the airport to Disney (depending on many factors including traffic and if the ME bus just left meaning you have to wait for the next one, etc.). Assuming that you don't get very lucky, or unlucky, let's assume that it will average you a total of 90 minutes from the time the plane lands until you get to DW. That adds up to at least six and a half hours. So, flying would save you four and a half hours of travel time; let's even assume that you stop for lunch on the road and flying saves you five hours.

If you do the 11 hour drive down in one day you would not need to spend money for a hotel on the way down. Same for the trip home. This makes driving even cheaper for you. But, even without subtracting the hotel cost, you save aprx. $400 by driving. So I guess you have to decide if saving $400 is enough incentive to drive. Flying will cost you about $80 for every hour you save in travelling.

I tell you what. I don't make $80 an hour, and I have a very good job.

If it was me, I would seriously consider driving. You can either pocket the $400 (and put it towards another trip the next year) or you can stay in a nicer hotel while you're there, buy a few nice souvenirs, and enjoy a few nice dinners out.

Either way, hope you have a great spring break.

 

[Darcy03231]

I'm not a fan of driving long distances, but, in your case, I would drive rather than fly. Since you're both college students I'm assuming that the $400 could be put to better use once you're there. 11 hours is definintely doable in one day.

 

[GEB@okw]

It costs at least 48 cents a mile to drive any car so I would recompute the true driving cost and then fly. How about the lost wages/time of two days?

 

[MARCIAKAZ]

If I could do it in one day--say 7am-6pm, without 3 kids in the backseat, I'd drive!!

Save a little money, only spend a little more time, logistics are easier, you're more in control of your schedule, you'll have your car with you during your vacation which adds convenience (or saves $$ if you were planning a rental)....

 

[psummrs]

I'm not really worried about lost wages or anything like that because I am still in college, which really is the reason we chose to travel during spring break because of internships over the summer and the limited vacation that comes along with it.

The way I computed the gas expense is to you use my distance (720 miles) divide it by my car's highway mpg (25) and multiply it by $3/gal for gas, which comes out to about $90. I thought about the cost of food but you would spend the same amount while waitinig in an airport anyways.

Anyways, thanks so much for help on this.

 

[lkneller]

I have done both many times from Pa. The thing I like most about driving is that packing is so easy. Just throw anything and everything in the car! Also, you have your car available and you can go anywhere at anytime in Disney. And only need to unpack the things from your car that you really need. You can keep the rest in the car. We often go in December, so we need to take it all: from shorts and swim suit to winter clothes. You never know what the weather will be in December!

Also, flying is becoming more of a pain every day. As one of the other posters already stated, flying takes alot more time these days. So how many hours will you really be saving over driving?

If money and time were no option, we would choose the auto train. We drove down last December and took the auto train home. We loved the auto train. We were in the sleeper car. It was very pleasant. But I wouldn't do it without the sleeper car.

Have a great trip!