The calculus of flying vs. driving
 

I head up to Sacramento from Long Beach a couple of times a year for meetings. Recently, I have been driving and spending a day or so in Yosemite or Sequoia. But, with my next meeting in mid-December and as my car isn’t set up for skis, I was all set to fly. But thinking about it, I may just drive:

I can drive in 5 hours and a half hours @ 75 MPH (when I behave myself).

To fly it’s an hour and a half from my front door to take off. Then, it’s another hour and a half to pick up a car and drive into Sacto (thinking that with all the TSA bull I would check luggage). I am going to have to kill a couple of hours after my meeting, coupled with the inconvenience of not being able to leave when I want, so I’ll arbitrarily add another hour and a half to my equation. Therefore: 4.5 hours to fly vs. 5.5 hours to drive, it’s getting pretty close. In fact, here may be an example where TSA has pushed a potential customer out of an airline seat into a car.

The cost of flying vs. driving is kind of a wash (although maybe I should factor in a speeding tix I got a couple of trips ago), particularly since it’s passed thru as a business expense. The meeting is early, and not miss-able, so I’d spend the night before in a hotel either way.

If I could sweeten the deal and get some miles, but American doesn’t fly into SMF (Alaska via PDX or SEA is a little intense/expensive for me), and to get United miles I’d need to add another 45 minutes to SNA or LAX. And, while JetBlue from LGB is as good as it gets to fly without status, their True Blue program is, to me anyway, truly worthless.

So, do people have a formula to decide to drive instead of fly?

No set formula, but miles. I'll drive up to 250 miles without thinking twice about it. 300, a little thought and 350 is about my cut off point for driving. In West Texas we drive miles, not so much by time as the roads are great and the traffic fast.

In fact I won't fly 250.

It's a time based formula for me. If I can do the trip in under 4 hours in a car, then I will drive (though that's not set in stone). At 4 hours it becomes a bit of a wash. Over 4 hours, I'll fly.

As I said though, not set in stone. When working in Montreal last year I had no need for a car in Montreal, so I flew from Toronto to Montreal because I didn't want the hassle and expensive of trying to park a car that I wasn't going to use.

All my travel is personal, so expense is obviously important; however, my overriding concern is the tradeoff against time— if driving is going to take so long it costs me Friday night on the town, or my limited vacation time, I'll definitely fly. In fact, because I usually leave after work on Friday, the airports are post-rush whereas the highways are jammed, and since I don't own a car and would have to rent one, it's almost never been a better time/money value to drive as opposed to fly where there's a nonstop available.

How long I need to be there is a main factor for me. For a 1-3 day trip, once the distance passes 3 hours, it is a flight. When I lived in DC, that meant Philadelphia was my northern limit and Richmond was about as far south as I would drive. Here in LA the equivalent is San Diego south, Palm Springs east, and Santa Barbara north/northwest. If I will be going for a longer period, I might be tempted to drive to San Francisco or places of similar distance... have in the past... but then again I was planning to drive to Napa and Sacramento this weekend prior to a meeting in San Jose on Tuesday, and am now about to leave for LAX for my 7:50 PM flight to SFO (decided Tuesday of this week I really did not want to drive)!

I do the reverse trip routinely, SMF to BUR (only occasionally LGB) and return. 400 mi door to door. My main issue is luggage. If I'm moving stuff from office to office or staying in LA area overnight, I drive. No TSA, no shoe carousel, no hauling bags to and fro, no flight delays, no standing on queue to get a "non-smoking" Hertz car that always smells of smoke, no SWA. Just more convenient. 5.5 hrs door to door with a book on IPOD from Audible. Relaxing and I'm in control, not TSA, not ATC. Might reconsider a bit if AA did the run, but they don't.


That said, when it snows over the grapevine (I-5) I fly. Headed South on Sunday, back Thursday. Looking forward to Woodward's book this trip.

I also live in Northern California and travel to Southern California regularly. I rarely drive. Basically, only when I need to carry a lot of stuff with me or when I need my own car down there. (Usually I borrow one from my father.)

I just hate that long drive. To me, it's NOT relaxing.

Ed

I'd rather not drive... but if flying does ont save you any time..
and considering the current state of TSA, I think you are better off
driving.

Flying is lot safer.. but I'd rather not be treated as a 3rd class citizen
bythe people whose salaries come from my tax money.

I've stopped flying unless its absolutely necessary.

I'd second that.

I used to drive between Newport beach and SJC area more than twice a month. Depending on the schedule, I'd prefer to go on 101 >> PCH for the South bound, I-55 >> I-5 for the North bound, sometimes I spent a night at Monterey. It was indeed a fun. Though, a couple of months later I got bored and decided to opt AmericanEagle flight to/from SNA or LAX instead.

I do still remember its course layout and scenery. Also remember a black BMW E38? driven by woman doing flat out overtook me as I'm crusing on I-101 North around Salinas. Unfortunately, I was driving a PT Cruser that day (dollar rent a car, turbo model was not available nor 300C) so that couldn't catch it :td:

Back to topic: It's been quite a while since I did do that last and have no idea the current road conditions though, "LGB--SMF" that looks doable to me unless it is on a weekly basis.
You should be able to get there in less than a 6 hour barring any traffic. One thing's for sure... There is a lot of bad driver tries to provoke you on I-5. So, it's going to be hard to behave yourself doing at only 75mph.

I don't own (or want) a car, so would only really consider driving when there's no plane/train/bus/bike alternative (in my fiancée's car, or a hire car). Even then, I find long-distance driving very tedious, and would try to avoid anything much over 3 hours.

I would say its a great idea where the public transportation is plenty and
reliable. Places like North America where public transportation is almost
absent or useless for most cases, driving is the best choice.

I think the highways came too fast here :p

The time might be roughly equivalent, but it's what you can do with that time that counts for me. In the lounge and on the plane, you can relax and read, or work. Driving, you can do neither. Plus, driving for five hours can be fairly exhausting--do you really want to show up that tired the night before, then have to get in the car and drive for five hours after what could be a stressful meeting?

well.. if the major portion of your time is consumed in
getting to/from Airport, checkin and security.. I think
driving might make more sense.

I'd rather fly, but recent changes make it more and more
difficult.

Sna - Rno
 

I head from Irvine to RNO a few times a year. I've tried several different airlines, but there aren't too many satisfactory flights to and from.

Flying from SNA:
1) Aloha, $182.60 RT. But I don't like the flight times, real late outbound and real early inbound.
2) WN, but it always has at least one stop and is more expensive at $199.20 for the same dates, and you're basically cattle.
3) My preferred carrier, AA, only has an AS codeshare out of LAX on a DH8 for $178.60. But I have to spend an hour driving out to LAX. :(


By road:
1) I-5 north to Sacramento, where I switch to I-80 east, pretty nice, but climbing drive through the Sierras. (9 hours)
2) There's the 55 Fwy to the 91 Fwy east to I-15 north to I-395 north. That's a slower drive, but very scenic and very fun to drive a car that handles well. (10 hours)
3) There's also I-15 to US-95 north to I-80. But US-95 is the main street though several towns where the speed limit goes to 25 mph, and the sheriff sits there waiting for you...plus the scenery is all desert. (10-11 hours)

Depending on how much fuel costs at the time and how much time I want to spend (or how much I have to carry) I usually end up driving. But during the winter, I-395 and I-80 end up getting snowed in pretty bad, so I end up flying Aloha to RNO. But I usually end up driving more often than flying.



Steve

:confused:

to answer the OP's question, anything longer than 5 hrs and I fly.

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