At some point, every road trip turns into a debate over whether it would’ve been easier to just get on a plane. Apparently, where you live has a lot to do with when driving starts to feel like more trouble than flying.
A new Upgraded Points survey looks at how much time people are willing to spend behind the wheel before they’d rather fly. It asked more than 24-hundred Americans how long they’re willing to drive for a personal trip before flying starts to look like the better option and found:
- On average, Americans say they’d drive up to nine hours and 39 minutes before choosing to fly.
- But the cutoff varied by more than six hours depending on which state the person was from.
- Cost and convenience matter too, with airfare being the biggest factor pushing people toward driving, while gas prices and concerns about car reliability can make flying look more appealing.
The states quickest to say “let’s just fly” and the point at which they’d choose to fly:
- California: six hours, 24 minutes
- Massachusetts: six hours, 55 minutes
- Rhode Island: seven hours, 16 minutes
- Texas: seven hours, 16 minutes
- Illinois: seven hours, 38 minutes
At the other end, these states are much more comfortable with an all-day drive:
- Idaho: 12 hours, 55 minutes
- Montana: 12 hours, 42 minutes
- Kentucky: 12 hours, 40 minutes
- Missouri: 12 hours, 37 minutes
- Maine: 12 hours, 35 minutes
The survey also asked what pushed people toward driving or flying. Those choosing to drive cited high airfare (75%), delays or cancellations (33%), layovers or connections (32%), and traveling with children or pets (31%), while those choosing to fly pointed to high gas prices (42%), concerns about car reliability (41%), heavy traffic (36%), and the possibility of needing an overnight stop (33%).
So there is no universal answer to how far is too far to drive. For some people, a full day behind the wheel is still preferable to an airport, while others are checking flight prices before lunch.
Source: Yahoo Finance