Apart from Australia, I've never lived on a big land mass, so I may not be 'eligible' to answer this question. However, the factors for me are not necessarily time used, but whether I'll need a car at the other end and how long I'll be staying there (and therefore parking and rental costs).

For example, one year I drove 7 hours (typically a 8-10 hours drive, but who's counting) to see my grandparents. The intention was to stay a few days, but I'd need a car at the other end, so I drove. During that time, my grandmother had to go into hospital unexpectedly, and I ended up staying almost 2 weeks. Lucky I'd my own car, otherwise I'd be facing a huge car rental bill.

Now, living in Aus, my limit is around 3 hours, but if there's a direct flight, I'll fly. I don't have a car here, so if I drive, I'll have to rent, so the costs will even out...

I live near EWR. I would take a bus to BOS or DCA (Amtrak's too expensive!). My driving range to other places would be 500 miles alone. Last December, I drove to BHM for a bowl game with 3 other people, we all took turns driving and went straight through without stopping at a hotel. If my expense account is paying, then it's Amtrak along the northeast corridor, and I would only drive 200 miles or less, otherwise I fly. But I once expensed a Greyhound ticket from CVG-NYC because my flight was canceled due to a snowstorm in CVG that would arrive the next day and so, no one was flying into CVG. And I wanted to be home since Christmas Eve was just 2 days away. I got home in 16 hours on the bus, and would have been stuck in Cincinnati in the snow if I hadn't thought of Greyhound. And I got a paid day off the day I was riding the bus.

There are a lot of factors: price, destination, reason for traveling, my mood. I used to drive between STL and ORD all the time (about 5 hrs), so I've moved to about 5 hrs as my limit, but there are times that (because I was in the mood and had the time and company), I've driven 23 hours rather than fly (even though cost-wise it would be about the same).

Lots of considerations:

1) How much it costs to get to my destination and how long I'll be staying

2) The purpose of the trip. If it's a vacation, I may want to see some of the sights along the way and don't mind taking two or three days to reach my destination. If it's a vacation in a rural area, I'll definitely want to have a car.

However, if it's a four-day convention in a city with a major airport, I'll just fly. If the city is large enough, it probably has good public transit. If it doesn't have good public transit, it's probably a boring suburban wasteland anyway.

3) The availability of alternatives, such as trains.

4) The hassle factor. If a short trip would require a couple of changes of planes, I'd just as soon drive.

My wife and I share one, so when I need to drive for biz, I rent. For trips of any length, it saves the company $$, since the mileage reimbursement would be more than the car rental and gas.

My general threshold used to be to fly if driving would take more than 4 hours. A couple of years ago I bumped that up to 7 or so. I had booked a round trip, non-stop on some DL affiliated regional between MCO and Charleston, SC. The flight up was no problem. The return was scheduled at 4:30 pm, so from where I was I had to leave for the airport a little after 3:00. As flight time approached, they called for a 45 minute delay. Over the next few hours, they kept extending it out another 30-40 minutes whenever the new departure time came near. They ended up canceling at 8:30, then I stood in line for 30 minutes to find out the best they could do for me was the same flight the next day. I rented a car, drove 6 1/2 hours and got home a little before 4:00 AM.

I realized that in the best of circumstances, door to door, flying only saved a couple of hours. A 6 1/2 drive from my house to the hotel or customer, vs.
30 minute drive to the airport
arriving 1 hour before flight
2 hour flight
45 minutes to pick up a rental car and drive to destination.

AActually the 10 hour figure was the time I estimate that I can drive from my home to MSY which is about 720 miles. The return trip was about 8 hours. Part of this was based on the fact that it was an evening flight so we left the hotel a bit early as we were not sure about traffic. Then the flight was delayed. We had a one hour layover in ATL which ended up being mostly used up by the delay of the first flight. Even though we were only in the air for slightly over 2 hours the time from hotel to to my garage was about 7hours 45 minutes:eek: I could have taken about 45 minutes of that if I was willing to cut a bit closer on time at MSY.

One possible explanation for your experience with TSA at EVV was that they were taking their Siesta:p Things are fairly laid back in southern Indiana

For leisure trips, I try to decide early if I want to "visit Chicago" (train, central hotel, try to do it with transit) or "visit Chicagoland" (car, lodgings on outskirts, sidetrips further afield). Attempts to do both have been frustrating.

Were you coming home from business? If so, I definitely wouldn't call it a "day off" riding the bus all day, not a chance.

I usually use the 3 hour rule, which gets me to NYC, BOS, and PHL. DC and Balto are always via Amcrack. Anywhere else, and I'm flying. Fortunately, I have 5 airports within an hour's drive (Under normal traffic...), so I can usually find something palatable. All of these rules go out the window towards the end of a lean flying year if I need to requal.

I was coming home from a business trip. I didn't have to go to work and I got paid (without having to use a vacation day), plus I got home earlier than the airlines would and cost the company less money than having them pay for a hotel in Cincy. When the choice is spend Christmas hundreds of miles from home in a snowstorm (what if the later flights are canceled), or get home in less than one day on a bus, or drive a rental car for 12 hours, the choice is clear, suck it up and go Greyhound.

I love to drive my V1-equipped M5....;)

I was about 3:50 from a project site near DC where I worked for 6 months last year and drove it every week. That was about my limit. I've driven 3 hrs. to Columbus and Harrisburg, which was a no-brainer. The traffic from DCA to the site tipped the decision to driving (plus $0.53/mile to me instead of an airline) but it was on the border.

To quote a Car and Driver columnest of a few years back - "If you absolutely, positively have to get there and it is less tha 500 miles, drive rather than fly."

It depends on a lot of factors. I've flown routes as short as DFW-CLL (less than 200 miles) but I've driven to Los Angeles and New York. Lately I haven't done much of flying or driving.

If I could, Id probably fly to the grocery store...

Thanks for the replies. Lots of great thoughts, It was interesting to hear so many different points of perspective. So many things can enter into the Fly vs Drive issue.