Fly drives (flydrives)

Sometimes I travel a great deal for speaking engagements even though I do try to stay in the South during the wintertime and the big question always is should I drive, which I sometimes do or should I fly and rent a car which I usually do.

I have come up with a rule of thumb for myself and that is if the distance is over 500 miles I will fly and rent a car when I get there. However, sometimes when Mary goes with me it is nice just to take a long drive and spend time together in the car. I always love traveling with my wife. Once in a while we will string speaking engagements together and drive the whole trip. This can be difficult to do as my church will allow me to be gone during a Sunday service once in a while but they don’t like it when I’m gone two weeks in a row. It is nice to be wanted.

Let’s say that we’re going to take a trip of 1500 miles and work out a price for the round-trip, both ways, by flying and by driving to our destination. We are not going to be concerned, for the purpose of our discussion, with the expenses incurred after we reach our destination.

Flying

As we live here in Melbourne Florida, most of our flights are out of Orlando and so we have a drive of about an hour and 15 minutes and then we have to leave the car parked over there. I like to leave our nice car parked in the parking garage under shelter so if we are gone a week that bill comes to over a $100 so that that fee must be added to the total cost.

The round-trip flights which will be say, approximately $250 each for a total of $500.

Then say we are going to be staying for a week, we have the rental car fee, which can be between $20 and $60 a day. Let’s average that out to $40 per day, times seven days is a total of $280.

Sometimes when we fly into an area to do a financial increase conference the host church will supply us with a car and a driver and that is very nice. However, sometimes the host church is located 100 miles away from the nearest airport and then it is more practical for us to rent a car.

Then of course you to buy some food and Starbucks coffee in the airport and that’s probably going to cost you $40 each traveling day and you have two traveling days so you have a total of $80.

Flying total is $860

Then of course there is the hassle of going through the airports, check-in of the luggage and all of the security checks involved, making the connecting flights and waiting, oh the waiting. One advantage to all this is I always seem to make friends and meet very interesting people in airports and on airplanes and this I very much enjoy.

Driving

We are going to be traveling 1500 miles. Oh, don’t forget, we have to come back that’s another 1500 miles for a total of 3000 miles. Now, gasoline is approximately $2.60 per gallon and let’s say our car gets 25 miles per gallon. We will need 120 gallons of gasoline to drive 3000 miles times $2.60 per gallon and we have a total of $312 for gasoline.

Most people can drive 500 miles per day comfortably so you’re going to spend six days driving a total of 3000 miles, which means that you’re going to have to stay overnight in a hotel four nights. Two nights on the way up and two nights and way back. A nice average room in a safe hotel is going to cost you about $80 per night but you will get a continental breakfast in the morning so that helps. So, four days times $80 per night comes to total of $320 for lodging during your trip.

Do you get hungry on a trip? If you do, let’s eat. That is going to cost more money. You will need to buy two meals per day, plus snacks and bottled water. This is going to cost you approximately $40 per day if you watch your pennies, times six driving days and you have another total of $240. When we stop for gas, if Mary is hungry when she goes into the store to use the facilities she will buy $20 worth of food and snacks, which we will carry with us for the rest of the trip. You can save some money however if you make sandwiches and take snacks with you  Whoa Mary.

Driving total is $872

Flying total is   $860

Difference is     $12 in cost between flying and driving.

Now if I am going on the trip by myself I can subtract $250 from the cost of flying and probably another hundred dollars for the cost of the food.

Traveling alone my total would be $610.

Driving alone my total would be    $760

Jimmy says, there are advantages and disadvantages to taking a trip in your own car. Some of the advantages are having your own car as I said before Mary and I like to spend time together on a long drive. Another advantage is we use this time just be together, to listen to good Christian music and also to fill our spirits by listening to good preaching CDs.

Don’t forget, if you drive your car 3000 miles you have wear and tear your car and the cost of an extra oil change and the added miles will cause your car to loose its value even faster than it normally would.

Jimmy says, the main advantage to flying is that you get there quickly.

Whoa Jimmy?

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http://www.increasenow.com/last-minute-travel-bargains/

http://www.increasenow.com/last-minute-travel-deal/

http://www.increasenow.com/travel-deals-last-minute/

http://www.increasenow.com/cruise-tips-on-saving-money/

http://www.increasenow.com/flight-for-less-money/

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Fly drives (flydrices), which should you do and if you have any ideas that you would like to add please share with our readers in the comments