I'm enrolled in a distance education program with the University of North Dakota and will need to attend summer school on campus in 2014-2016. Each of my three trips will be 1-2wks in length and I'm trying to figure out my best plan of getting there.

Since I have a full year before my first trip I have plenty of time to sign up for credit cards to get hotel/airline miles & get a plan together.

My dilemma is that flying in a CRJ200 tin can on DL/UA sounds equally as horrible to me as flying nonstop AZA-GFK on Allegiant. But if I fly on DL/US/WN from PHX-MSP that leaves me with a 4 1/2 drive to Grand Forks plus the cost of a car (which I prob wouldn't need once I'm on campus). Fargo and Winnipeg would both be closer but would again be on a smaller plane.

They offer on campus housing for $40/night so it may be easiest to just do that rather than getting a hotel. But doing a dummy booking it seems like I would get my best bang for the buck on cashing in points for a Marriott branded hotel. IIRC it was around 15k points a night. But maybe I should be thinking about earning points on a paid stay instead? Hilton, Holiday Inn, Super 8 & Ramada are a few of the other chains in the area.

Does anyone have any outside the box ideas for me on an efficient/safe way to get from Phoenix to Grand Forks?

Drive to campus in your own car. Use the drive to explore places. One trip you could do a camping road trip in Colorado and nebraska another trip you do Utah and Wyoming.

I don't know the area to say whether you don't/do need a car.

As part of the costs look at flying into grand forks or Fargo vs MSP.

What are the one way rental rates from MSP? Is there a train or bus servce that gets you to MSP? Does the college offer some set of shuttle service either to get around the campus area or offer a bus for students to Minneapolis.

When in the year would you do this? Look this year and see what hotel rates are?

Is the cost of this out of your pocket or job reimbursement?

Most likely flight would be delta or American/united thru MSP and ORD. What are their schedules like this summer? What is the cost difference of flying to grand forks vs MSP not just in price but drive time vs layover/connection flight time.

I don't see why you wouldn't just fly direct to GFK... I am not particularly fond of RJs but I would rather take one direct to my destination as compared to taking a 737 or whatever to MSP and then being faced with the hassle of driving 4 hours at each end of the trip. I guess if MSP were far cheaper that might sway me into driving, but that's about it.

Also, you will want a car to use in Grand Forks. It's a small city and it's definitely car oriented, so if you want to get off campus at all a car is practically a must IMO - unless you're really good at making friends (with cars) very quickly.

Lastly, hotels in Grand Forks are pretty reasonably priced on weekdays but they get relatively pricy (for what you get) on weekends with all the people who pour in from out of town. To the point where it is common to spend > $90 a night for Days Inn-type places. So to my mind the UND dorm sounds pretty good compared to paying $150 for a Saturday night at the Fairfield Inn. It'll probably be more fun too.

Thanks guys for the opinions.

@djp - I would love to do a road trip but I just don't have the vacation time at work. It will be hard enuf escaping for 2wks three summers in a row. And my job will pay for most of the tuition but the travel is all out of pocket.

@heraclitus - I had planned on bringing a kick scooter with me to get around on campus and then rent a car to explore on the weekend. Maybe I'll just rent a car for the duration otherwise I might feel trapped on campus I never did the dorm thing on my first go round 10-15yrs ago so maybe it will be a fun experience.

The kick scooter for weekdays and rent a car for weekends combo could be workable.

Bon voyage!

The RJ ride from MSP to GFK is only 35-40 minutes in the air; tough it out. The shiny new two-gate airport at GFK is easy to transit, five miles from the UND campus, or about a $15 cab ride.

Guess again about not needing a car around Grand Forks / UND though. The campus is nice but sprawling, and well removed from both Grand Forks proper and the big shopping / dining arterial, 32nd Street. You'll feel stranded without a car, so you might want to think about just roadtripping up there, or buying a beater on scene. About the best restaurant in the area, the Blue Moose, is actually across the Red River in East Grand Forks, MN. Downtown bars to check out include the Toasted Frog and Parrot's Cay. 32nd Street has all the fast food chains, Olive Garden, Buffalo Wild Wings, Texas Roadhouse, etc.

There is not a proper Hilton but a Hilton Garden Inn, and it's the only hotel within walking distance of campus. (It's even connected to some campus buildings via an elevated giant gerbil-Habitrail arrangement, so you don't have to go outside in the subzero winter.) It's fine but like many hotels in college towns they raise their rates outrageously whenever people (e.g. parents) come into town; things can fluctuate from $75 to close to $200. The Holiday Inn north of campus is old and not very nice. The Fairfield Inn near 32nd Street is new and very nice, but you'd need a car to get back and forth. They're putting up a Hampton Inn in the same area; I think it's almost ready. There's also the high-rise Canada Inn about 3/4-mile south of UND, barely walkable. If you contemplate walking any distance around Grand Forks in the summer be prepared for blazing heat and insane flash thunderstorms.

If you take the dorm option you'll be with some other students, many undergraduates -- the UND aerospace program operates year-round -- but it's a small, young student population and things can be lonely, for them and adults alike; you might feel out of place. One college dining hall operates through the summer, though the hours are pretty lame -- dinner service ends at 630pm. After that it's the legendary Red Pepper for late-night eats, or Domino's. College food is uninspired.

Source: my son is a UND student, and he begs you to think twice about the dorm option, especially if you're over 21. His first (carless) summer on campus was pretty rough. Myself, I'd probably drive up there and live at the Fairfield Inn or Hampton Inn.