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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

I've got a trip to take in a couple weeks. I have a choice: 4 hours of driving followed by two regional flights. Or just forget flying and drive 16 hours point to point. Between today's issues and all the headaches at YVR over the holidays, driving 16 hours seems more comfortable and less stressful than rolling the dice with regional airline travel.

I would rather be stuck driving my car for a day than spend a day sleeping on the floor of an airport lobby.

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How many people in the car and how many drivers? What do you expect for the weather? Anywhere you want to stop somewhere in the middle?

Probably less effort and time to fly, but a lot of waiting without agency.

I used to need to be in a city every other week that was only a 1.5 hour flight.

I decided to see if driving might get me there in comparable time if I compared when I closed my front door to when I opened the door of my destination.

I was surprised to find that the time it took as almost the same. That's because flying requires:

* start drive to airport (45 minutes) * park and get on a shuttle (15 minutes) * get to gate (30 minutes) * wait (60 minutes because I'm early by an hour) * fly (1:45) * taxi to gate (5-45 minutes) * walk to light rail stop (10 minutes) * ride light rail too stop (45 minutes) * walk to destination (15 minutes)

Door to door flying: about 6 hours

Driving:

* start driving (6 hours) * fuel stop (15 minutes) * park (15 minutes) * arrive

If I didn't obey speed limits, I could cut an hour or more off that 6 hours.

That said, I still preferred flying. Hard to take a nap or space out while driving for 6 hours.

Depending on the length of the stay and whether you need a car, I'd do the road trip in a heartbeat.

Whenever I opt for 'roadtrip', almost inevitably, about 4-5 hours in, I wish I were flying. When I fly, I don't usually say "oh, I wish I'd driven" (unless there's a delay or problem).

As I've driven more, I need to allot myself more stops. If a trip is over 10 hours, I'll probably split it in 2 days, and stay overnight some place. 20 years ago, I would have 'pressed on', but... it's usually not worth it any more. But some of the 'cost savings' of driving go away when you factor in hotels.

99% chance this won't happen to your flight.

It happened last time on a nearly identical itinerary. First flight was late. Missed connection. Landed at second airport too late for the bus (military to base where my car was parked). Had to spend night in hotel waiting for bus the following day.

Time before that, I arrived on time but my bag did not. Had to wait at airport for six hours for bag. Missed bus. Hotel. Bus the following day.

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