Car vs. Plane Travel for Long Trips

For the last week, I spent a considerable amount of time on a road trip with my husband's family - his parents and his brother's wife and three children. His grandfather had passed away, and we all wanted to attend the funeral to mourn and to show our support for his grandmother as she transitions to widowhood.

We had two options - we could fly down to Florida from Nebraska, which would have taken about half a day but cost twice as much upfront, or we could drive down there which would take 24 hours (two 12-hour days of driving plus food/fuel breaks) but would cost half as much upfront.

Since we hadn't planned on a trip any time soon and thus didn't have any extra money saved up, and since his parents really wanted everyone to carpool to save costs, we went with driving.

Now that I am back home, I have a recommendation - fly, especially if you have small children traveling with you!! Flying, while more expensive in the short term, would have saved us a lot of other costs (fuel, food, hotels) and a whole pile of stress in the long term. The children had a terrible time being cooped up in the car, despite our filling their time with various games and distractions. There were plenty of short fuses and arguments, and the hotels had to be cheap to avoid racking up costs so they weren't great (in fact, the one we had to spend the most time in was another point of argument and hassle). Additionally, the youngest child wasn't feeling very well, and had we been able to only spend half a day traveling, he would have had some time to get to feeling better in the hotel room rather than spending two days cooped up in a car only to have to turn around two days later and spend another two days in the car. So we had to deal with a very cranky child, who then caused most of the rest of us to feel sick as well.

Plus, my husband and I ended up having to get a rental car just to make sure we had something reliable in which half of us fit, and that cost us just as much as it would have cost us just to pick up a couple of plane tickets and staying in a hotel for an extra night! That caused further arguments due to the fact that it wasn't our car so we had to be extra careful about allowing the children to do anything messy in the car.

You always want to look at every angle when you travel - it may be that the option you think would be more costly will save you more money (and sanity) later on!