In the Midwest USA, my only two choices are fly or drive. For a family trip for 4 or 5, we generally choose to drive up to about 6-8 hours and fly beyond that. Slightly shorter timeframes for me on a solo business trip...then I'd drive 3-4 max and fly beyond that.

If I lived in a region with fast, comfortable trains between cities, I would probably enjoy that over both airports and driving. When I lived in the UK as a student, I took trains all over the country (well, much of England and Wales) and never had an issue with it. Only time we rented a car was to do a Scotland trip...we knew we were visiting a few places not directly on a train line.

My tolerance for driving is roughly 3 hours, less if there's heavy traffic. Anything beyond that, I'm definitely flying.

My coworkers and I have often debated about the merits of flying versus driving when going between Houston/Dallas, Houston/San Antonio, and Houston/NOLA, but primarily the Dallas trip. It's definitely one of those where the time spent traveling is about the same but whether you'd rather be in a car for 4 hours versus driving to the airport, security, lounge, and then on a plane for an hour.

I agree with some other posters that 3 hours in a car is the max so even going to San Antonio I like to fly if the times are conducive to doing so.

I absolutely love to fly a lot more than I do driving.

I was reading through the posts trying to figure out why everyone commenting was from the UK :)

I much prefer flying even if it takes longer, because it's just too much fun (I guess I am a kid inside :D )

I'll fly STL-MCI or STL-ORD and have lots of times.

One time I flew STL-IRK for a day trip (NE Missiouri)

I enjoy driving if I can find an open road with some interest to it, i.e., actually driving. But for trips longer than three hours, or that involve traffic, I would almost always pick flying. Since I live in Southern California, that means anywhere outside the LA/OC/SD region earns a trip to the sky.

for your lifestyle it would seem so.

Sadly time is a valuable commodity, one I don't have a lot of, so I fly when it saves me a good block of time.

Otherwise I love driving, just have to figure out how to not be driving when everyone else is in the same area, traffic jams/rush hour driving is a big time killer and reduces my enjoyment of the driving experience. They used to be so easy to predict, I can recall knowing that if I left a client's office in downtown Chicago by 4:30pm, I'd be in heavy traffic but it would be moving at a good clip, those days are long gone. Now, at least in Chicago, traffic jams worse than rush hour can occur at most any time. agreed, I'd add "in a region with density of cities", as I'm not taking a train between Chicago & Kansas City, unless the train can maintain ~200mph which isn't likely in the near or mid term future.

Really depends on many factors:

- if a trip is work related. In this case my personal limit on driving is 3 hours one way. I'd hate to have driving SF-LA on weekly bases back and forth.
- how many people are in party: driving 6 people in a minivan SFO-LAX would definitely costs less than flying.
- if time is issue or not

So, if I am in vacation, time is not an issue and more than two people in the party - I prefer driving. I and my wife did 10-14 hour car trips number of times and it always was fun.

I prefer flying as I've always been fascinated by planes since I was a kid. But as soon as I get to the airport and the hassles begin I wonder whether it's all worth it.

Driving in the States in a hire car is great.

Fair point: If you have to change trains or need to take a regional train to get to your destination is not that much fun and you cannot really work. as long as you can rely on long distance trains especially in central europe this is really in alternative. So waiting times and check-in or security, no traffic jam etc.

If it was possible.......I would fly to the supermarket......any place any time!

I like both flying and driving. In some cases the parameters of the trip make it fairly obvious which choice is best. For example, if the drive is less than 3 hours it's usually fastest and easiest to drive. I always make at least a quick calculation considering:

• The door-to-door time for each method of travel. This includes driving to the airport, transit to the terminal, and driving/transit from the destination airport to my final destination.
• The hard costs. For flying, this includes airfare, transit, parking, taxi or car rental on the other end, etc. For driving this includes fuel and maintenance (I use an estimate per mile based on government figures) plus any tolls and parking costs I wouldn't incur if I had to rent a car.
• Does the schedule fit? I.e., how well do the flight times align with the times I wish to travel. For driving, will I want to shift my travel times to avoid bad traffic?
• Flexibility. If there's a good chance I need to return sooner or later than planned, what will the airfare change costs be?
• Fatigue. Long drives are generally more tiring than short flights, so if I drive will I be too tired to drive safely? Will I be too tired to do what I need to do when I arrive at my destination?

I prefer to fly.

At one time I loved driving, but then the roads became clogged with
folks who don't know the meaning of "share the road".

Driving then became more of a chore than joy. I often remember as
a child my father saying to the family "Lets go for a drive."... and we
would pile in the car and drive aimlessly around town sometimes
stopping at a restaurant for a coffee. Back then it was still enjoyable.

Oddly enough despite all the flights I am not an extremely comfortable
flier but I do feel safer flying than driving.