Twenty years ago, my wife and I took a long driving vacation, and we had a couple of days as part of that trip which were all-day drives, winding up being 12 or 13 hours in a day. Despite the fact that we had a comfortable car, and took turns behind the wheel, that was enough to leave us both wiped out at the end of the day.
And, that was when we were in our 30s. I’d probably be very unhappy at the end of a 10-hour driving day at this point, much less 12 or 16 hours.
To each his/her own, but I personally don’t see the appeal of flying.
The glory days of air travel are long gone. Air travel these days is miserable. The airlines pack you in like sardines into seats that are tiny and uncomfortable. Even though you pay them hundreds of dollars, they won’t spend $5 or so to give you a half-decent meal, and instead they feed you a tiny bag of trail mix. If you want “real” food, the closest you can get is fast food at ridiculously expensive airport prices. And for anything less than about a 10 hour drive, with all of the getting to the airport early, waiting around to check your bags, go through security, etc. then waiting at the destination to get your bags, get your rental car, etc. you can actually get there faster by driving.
For a 16 hour drive, the person flying will definitely beat you there, but only by a few hours. And personally, I’d rather drive a few extra hours than deal with the misery of modern air travel.
Plus, if you are driving, you won’t catch whatever cold/cough/flu/etc is floating around through the airplane’s passenger compartment.
I agree with everything you said. And as a bonus you have your car with you as opposed to a rental or relying on mass transit or uber.
Though over 10 hours, I’m probably not going to drive straight through any more so if it is a short trip, flying would win out. Next time I go to Florida might be a 2 day drive with an overnight stops in Charleston, SC. (include a visit the USS Yorktown CV-10). This would leave just a 6 hour trip the second day of driving to Orlando as an example.
I find interesting comments about a long drive being “torture” etc. Driving 15-16 hrs is not what I would choose just as a way to spend a day, but definitely preferable to 8 hrs at work - which I do 5x/week. The car (Subaru Forester) was very comfortable. Adaptive cruise is GREAT! We listened to Huck Finn and music. Plenty to see out the windows and talk about w/ my favorite conversationalist. Snacked on healthy/tasty food along the way. Stopped every 2 hrs for bathrooms/gas - walked around/stretched. Just not a bad way to spend a couple of days.
When I arrived, I wasn’t up for much other than some talk and bed - but wouldn’t exactly be ready to party after a day of air travel either. No fatigue a good night’s sleep didn’t cure.
If we had flown, it would have been 4 hrs min w/ connection, several hundred $, the joy that is O’Hare (or Midway), being treated as a potential terrorist, and airport suspended animation. Add in the need to arrive early and arrange transport at both ends, and you’re closing in on an 8-hr day.
BTW - we came home early due to predicted horrible weather on our planned travel day. So we did 2 full days of driving for a REALLY enjoyable 2 full days at our destination. Worked for us, which is all that matters!
My cutoff used to be 6 hours, based on my distance from the airport and such. Door to door times for getting from Denver to Albuquerque were about the same driving or flying.
I’d totally believe the cutoff time has gone up, because it certainly hasn’t gone down. That also doesn’t include the probability of a systemic issue with the airlines that causes a major delay. Also something that parents may understand, I’d rather spend 8 hours in the car with my kid, than 1.5 hours in a security line.
16 hours ends up being a time win for flying, if everything goes right: a non-stop flight and no unexpected delays. Door to door time is still in the 6-7 hour range. Of course, then cost can come into it. On my recent journey, round trip flights would have totaled over $2000, and all in on hotels and charging driving was around $400.
Oh yes. I used to get really wiped out after about 8 hours, couldn’t focus on the road, and mostly was just done. On the last few trips I did 8 hours and just felt hungry at the end. I’m still paying attention and all of that, but the mental load is just so much less with the car picking up some of the work. It sounds trivial, but there is a big difference between seeing that traffic ahead is going slower, and actually having to do something about it.
While I appreciate and have done mane a journey-is-a-least-as-interesting-as-the-destination type of road trips, most of time these days, I just want to get to point B ASAP. Plus I actually like airports and I like flying. For all the flying I’ve done in my life, misery has been exceedingly rare (the only real time I could think of was being interviewed in a windowless room by a uniformed gentleman with a black-suited man taking copious notes nearby, in Sheremetyovo in Moscow.) I get there early; I don’t stress out; somebody else is getting me to my destination; and I can sit on a plane with my AirPods set to noise cancellation mode and just veg out without feeling guilty about not getting something done. I might catch up on a book, an album, some TV shows, or just pay the $8 on Southwest and surf the internet for a few hours. Just the idea of having absolutely no responsibilities up there is appealing for me. I get there rested and relaxed. As opposed to driving a car which I have to maintain control over the whole time and expend mental energy for ten or twelve hours.
I agree. My wife has a Hyundai Ioniq, and when I turn on the adaptive cruise with the lane centering, it’s virtually a self-driving car (on the interstate.) I use it all the time when I pick my kid up from school and have to face rush hour traffic coming home. The thing rarely makes any sort of error – the only thing I don’t like is that it is late to react (by my standards) if there is a stoppage 1/4 mile up and I’m doing near highway speeds. Otherwise, it’s gotten me from the on-ramp to the off-ramp home after picking up my kid without any of my input most of the time. Yesterday, I had to only correct it once.
When I started my master’s degree program, I drove with a friend from Saskatoon to Toronto and back. On the way there, we stayed overnight at a hotel and it wasn’t too bad. On the way back, I suggested driving non-stop: would not recommend.
Sixteen hours is probably at the limit of my tolerance; twelve hours I wouldn’t have a problem with.
The most I’ve done by myself is around 18 (from near Orlando to Chicago. Would not recommend). In college, three of us shared driving duties to get from Chicago to Flagstaff in one continuous go (minus stops for food and gas.) Even though none of us drove for more than 8 hours straight, it was still pretty brutal, even as 19 year olds. I’ve also done 50 hours in a Greyhound from LA to Chicago. Definitely do not recommend, even if you do no driving. Good Lord I wish I had the funds to fly that one. Hell, I thought I liked driving, but compared with some of you maniacs here, I clearly don’t. (Though we’ll do a drive from Chicago to Binghamton every year with two kids, so I do still get stuck with long 12 hr+ journeys, and only I do the driving there.)
I guess road tripping is in my blood, because as a kid we were snowbirds from Upstate NY driving down to Florida for winter breaks. It was almost an annual tradition. We did a couple of cross-country drives to San Francisco too. And my wife grew up similarly.
I do all the driving, and she hardly does any. She’ll only drive if it’s broad daylight and a clear day, and if I’m really tired. But we are road warriors.
I like driving late at night. It’s a good time to cover miles if we need to get from point A to B. Living now near San Francisco, if we need to go to LA or Vegas or Phoenix, we drive. I used to travel to St. Louis for work a lot, and yeah I would fly, but one summer I had to be there for two weeks and I decided to ride my motorcycle there. It was an experience to be sure. That’s the farthest I’ve gone by bike.
I’ve driven across the USA a few times. My wife and I are planning to do Route 66 next year: drive out to Chicago, then 66 to LA, then home to San Francisco. All in an old 1963 car. Not the most comfortable ride, and definitely no adaptive cruise control (ACC).
We have a diesel Jeep Grand Cherokee (with ACC!) and it is very comfortable. On the wide open highways in the western US it’ll cruise at 90 all day long. Comfortable, and yes that is safe when the highways are mostly straight and you can see for miles to either side of the road.
I did 16-hour car trips along with another driver during college days. It was pretty zombifying even with the aid of No-Doz and perhaps another form of stimulant (“Radar Love” has a particular significance for me). Not only would that be inconceivable now, I can’t even get Mrs. J. to agree to such a journey broken up into two days of driving.
Maybe it would be different if Hoss’ Steak and Sea House hadn’t declined in quality (it used to be a go-to stop when crossing the vast spaces of Pennsylvania).
I might prefer driving 15 hours to working 8 hours as a complete experience, too. But working 8 hours was more physically comfortable, because my movement wasn’t as restricted as it is in a car - I rarely spent even two consecutive hours sitting at work. I can’t really stand up whenever I want to in a car even if I’m not driving.
Yeah - I get that. But sitting for 2 hour stretches in a pretty comfortable chair, w/ the climate adjusted the way I like, w/ good company, good food, good entertainment, and a constant changing scenery around me - pretty hard-pressed to call that uncomfortable. Add in the freedom to stop - pretty much whenever you want for food/gas/bathroom/stretch/change drivers…
I live in the middle of flatland (Chicago), so it’s normally very many hours before I see anything of interest if I hit the Interstate in most directions (going north and hugging the lake can be fun). Driving out West is the worst. I get to see, what, Central Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, before I start hitting some interesting hills and mountains. Ugh. Most years I have to drive just 3 hours to Indianapolis and, I swear, I-65 is one of the most dead boring roads in the world. That 3-hour trip feels like 12. Sure, driving in the Rockies, the Pacific Northwest, the East Coast – that’s stimulating and fun. Most of the drives out here? Just flat farmland forever.
Man, I’m a lifelong Illinoisan. You don’t have to tell me about boring terrain.
But even in boring IL/IN/IA/NE…, you have buildings, signs, animals, vehicles, all matter of things to chat about. Yeah, my wife and I like to muse about minutiae. “Why do you think they put THAT right THERE?”
The car (Subaru Forester) was very comfortable. Adaptive cruise is GREAT! We listened to Huck Finn and music. Plenty to see out the windows and talk about w/ my favorite conversationalist. Snacked on healthy/tasty food along the way. Stopped every 2 hrs for bathrooms/gas - walked around/stretched. Just not a bad way to spend a couple of days.
