My cousins thought their annual drive from western Pennsylvania to the Atlantic shore was as unbearably long. I don’t remember their exact usual destination but from Pittsburgh to Atlantic city is about 350 miles. That’s in the neighborhood of where’d they go.
My family, however, didn’t think that jumping in the car and spending three days to go Yellowstone was out of the question. That’s 1800 miles from where I grew up.
To this day, I don’t sweat 1000 mile trips. I just automatically assume that I’ll drive them. Flying is too expensive, especially with a family, so this is just the way things are done.
So - excluding obvious trips to island nations - how far does it have to be for you before driving is taken off the table? Let’s give you a hypothetical two-week vacation that you’ll be using for this trip.
My line is somewhere around three days travel. That’s about 2500 miles before I’d write-off driving and only consider flying. From Denver, that’ll get me about anywhere in the continental US.
My line has changed since my income went up. A number of years ago, I managed a two week trip that included seven days of driving. That was with me as the only driver and two kids under 10 years old in the back seat. These days I would probably fly anywhere that would take more than a day of driving, now than I can afford it. Just this past weekend I drove 7 1/2 hours and almost 500 miles each way to visit my parents.
My brother and I regularly drive out to CA to see our parents. I prefer the leisurely pace to the hurried aggravation of flying. The real limitation is how much time I can get off.
So, I’d say, just about any place I can drive within a couple of days, for sure. If I have more time off, I could see driving for three or four days, if I can stop to see the occasional site.
For me, if the drive would take longer than the whole process of going to the airport, flying, and getting out of the airport–then it’s too damn far to drive. If I can’t afford to fly somewhere for a vacation, then I count it as not being able to afford a vacation.
With the price of gas through the roof, I’m a lot more likely to fly than to drive, especially since the kids have moved out and it’s just my wife and I.
We have driven several time to visit my daughter in Washington state, but usually we will fly.
For me, there are 2 factors that make the determination.
[ol]
[li]Can we get enough time off of work to make driving a possiblity?[/li][li]Will the cost of gas, food and lodging along the way be cheaper than air fare?[/li][/ol]
My line is about 500 miles one-way with two small kids in the back. That is about the distance that my SIL lives from us in the Boston area to her house in Pennsylvania. It sucked the last time badly but we made it although with a very generous supply of projectile vomiting coming from the back seat. However, getting to the airport and landing 2 hours away from her house anyway makes the analysis more complicated.
If it is just me, the distance is unlimited. I drove 11,000 miles all round the country for two months a few years ago. I loved it but I didn’t have to be anywhere in particular at any given time.
If I’m driving by myself or just with my husband, I’m fine with anything up to about 12 hours (though those last few hours tend to see me pretty irritable).
But we have a 2 year old son - I’d put the driving limit at 5-7 hours for him during the day. I’d consider driving through the night with him (about 10-12 hours), but it’d suck and if I could get a flight that would go the same distance in 3-4 hours, I’d do it.
I’ll drive up to about 5ish hours. So from here, I drive to Vegas, Palm Springs, San Diego and my SO has driven to San Francisco. Anything beyond that I would fly.
That 2 week vacation is very hypothetical. I don’t think I have ever had more than 1 week off at a time. Honestly though since I am single and I can find a deal on a plane ticket pretty much anywhere I may want to go through my internet sleuthing skillz I would prefer to fly anywhere that can’t be reached by my local public transportation (I no longer have a car, so that factors into this as well.)
Before the price of gas went through the roof, I’d readily drive from SoCal to the Bay Area, Salt Lake City, and Albuquerque. Anything past that and I’d usually fly. Although, I did make regular runs up the 5 to the Bellingham area in Washington for a few years. Driving ( the act) doesn’t bother me at all. Driving (the cost these days) bothers me quite a bit.
I’ll be driving from DC to St. Louis with two young kids in a few weeks. That is a lot farther than I’d like to drive, but flying is not in the budget right now. I am not a good road tripper. I can’t read in the car and I hate to sit still. I want to get out of the car and do something - ANYTHING - every two hours. A five hour drive with a stop in the middle is the upper limit for a happy me.
Heh. When I drove to my parent’s house in my daughter’s Civic, I drove seven straight hours without stopping. I was almost sucking fumes when I pulled into the driveway, but I proved I could make almost 450 miles on one tank of gas. Boy, was my butt tired though.
No such thing in absolute terms. Some variables include:
-length of trip;
-cost of plane fare compared to cost of gas/lodging;
-driving route and points of interest en route;
-amount of luggage;
-number of passengers (airfare can get pricey for a family of 5!)
I’ve got no problem driving to Florida or either coast from Chicago. But if I only have 5-7 days’ vacation and can score a cheap plane ticket, I’ll choose not to burn a day or more on either end driving.
As far as simple convenience goes, I’d probably drive up to 6 hours just to avoid what I consider the unpleasantness of air travel. Say from Chi to Detroit, St. Louis, or Cincy. Much over 6 hours, and airport hassles start looking more palatable.
When the cost of gas > the cost of a plane ticket, or about 10 hours. That seems to be about our limit.
On the other hand, anything under about 6 hours is almost a no brainer. We’ve driven from Minneapolis to Des Moines in the morning, had pizza and a visit with some friends, and drove back that evening. That’s 7-8 hrs of drive time, total.
It depends on a lot of things. Sometimes, the drive IS the destination. Both my husband and I like to do what John Steinbeck called “vacilando” in Travels with Charlie. That means you have a sort of destination that, if you never get there is o.k. but you will enjoy the journey. Stop to enjoy whatever’s on the way, take detours as you will. For that type, the only “too long” is that you have to know how long it would take to get home at top speed, and not get more than that far away by the time you need to be back, if any.
Beyond that, it becomes a matter of will it take longer to drive or longer to go through the whole airport thing, with the arrival 2 hrs before departure, etc.
A few years back a number of other folks and I had to travel to Boston for some company training session (which turned out to be completely useless). Everyone but me took a plane. I drove. I spent less time travelling than they did, and I think I spent less.
My wife and I have been on several long car trips to various places. On the plus side, driving seems to tickle my wife’s bladder so that we seldom drive more than two or three hours between rest breaks. On the minus side, my wife seems to feel that sleep is an optional waste of time, and doesn’t understand why two hours of half-dozing in a rest area isn’t all I need to be completely refreshed. One day’s drive of up to twelve hours isn’t so bad, but the real killer is having to do it two days back to back, on minimal sleep; or an eighteen-hour drivathon to not have to pay for a motel.
On a more local note, I have a choice between going to a gun range five minutes drive from my house that charges $20* a visit, or drive for an hour each way on the freeway to some ranges out in the boonies that charge half that. These days, the gas would cost what I’d save.
*door price. I’m saving up for a yearly membership that drops the price of a weekly visit, including a few bonuses like free targets, to $14. But it’s a big up-front outlay.
I love being behind the wheel and prefer to drive to my vacation spots. My record is 24 hrs straight from L.A. to Houston ~1500 miles. But the 1000 miles from Denver to my parent’s house I drove about 8 times a year generally taking 16 hrs. Now with gas prices I’m debating the 6 hr drive to Denver for a weekend. Excluding gas prices I would say that 1500 would be my cap for a 2 week trip because that would mean I would lose 4 days of my vacation any more then that and your spending as much time traveling as vacating.
It depends on how much time I have and if there is anything fun in between. Going by recent experience I will drive (all numbers are one way):
There and back on one day- 120 mi/2hrs
Leave Friday night, back Sunday- 200 mi/3.5hrs
3 day weekend- 400 mi/6 hrs
Week off, with both weekends-1500 mi/24 hrs
If money was no object I’d probably fly for 3 day and longer trips, unless the drive was part of the fun, like most of the American west.
The longest I’ve driven by myself is 650 mi/11hrs, that was in college when I went home for a week. I will never do that again. I swear I had the accelerator all the way down through the entire state of Virginia and I was just barely over the limit. That was one slow car.