Should I drive or fly for vacation?
Deciding between driving and flying comes down to balancing travel distance, personal comfort with flying, and the hassle of dealing with a car at your destination like parking in NYC. People weigh limits like five to eight hour driving thresholds against fear of flying or navigating unfamiliar traffic.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Drive to where you are staying outside the city center and walk to a subway or PATH train
- 2Set a strict driving distance limit (e.g., 5-8 hours max) before automatically choosing to fly
- 3Take public transit/walking upon arriving instead of driving around the destination city
- 4Using public transport, trains, and buses
- 5Relying on guided day tours to get around
- 6Self-driving and dealing with single-track roads and parking
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I drive a lot. I like it. I drove once to jfk. Never again. NYC driving is the worst”source ↗
“I’ll usually drive anywhere within 5 hours, and I’ll consider it up to 8. Anything over that is very clearly in flight territory even before factoring in whether I want to deal with my car at the destination”source ↗
“My partner has flown, but is not big on flying and I have never flown”source ↗
“Hi, we’re currently planning to travel Scotland in May, and are debating whether we should self drive or use public transport/trains as well a day tours to get ourselves around.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 7Is a short weekend trip worth the time and money?
- 2Should we cancel our trip if our toddler has a fever?
- 3Is late October a good time to visit North Sumatra?
- 22Is it safe to keep driving with needle bearings in the transmission pan?
- 6Is a week-long trip to Asia worth the jet lag?
- 16How to choose between two completely different vacation destinations