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Comment by kijinbear | Hacker News Reader

Driving can still be cheaper than flying if you have 2 or more people traveling together. It would be tough to beat trains and buses, though.

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It would be tough to beat trains and buses, though.

In the case of trains, it depends very much on where you are and where you're going. For example flying between basically any two European capital cities is almost always cheaper than taking the train.

True, driving a family of four anywhere in the US is almost always cheaper than flying. And trains, not so much in the US unless you happen to have a fairly direct route. Omaha to Denver by train is OK, Topeka to Denver, nearly the same distance for practical purposes, but to take the train you have to go to Chicago then to Omaha, then to Denver.

Yes - and if you have lots of baggage too. Something to consider.

Traveling with a family on a fairly short / medium-haul trip (no overnight stay necessary) with lots of baggage? Driving will trump airfare costs for certain.

I'm not sure about trains. I actually looked into this, getting a train from Tuscaloosa to Las Vegas. The two cheapest round trip train tickets were more than twice the price of a round trip plane ticket. Also, both train routes took four days, both of which involved a bus ride on the last day. That's not to mention both train routes going through Chicago. It was crazy.

Once had a flight from Omaha to Evansville through St. Louis. At the gate in St. Louis the airline informed us that the flight was being canceled so they put us (10 passengers in all) in a van and drove us to the Evansville airport, dropped us off, and the driver drove away. The airport was closed! The only pay phone you could see was on the other side of locked doors! This was long enough ago that most of the passengers didn't have cell phones.

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