Am I Being Logical? To Fly Or Drive...

AllBizNiz

AllBizNiz

Living The Dream
Oct 27, 2009
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Ohio
I have to vent this one out here so bear with me. I want to make sure I'm just not being the illogical one in the argument I had with my wife this morning. We are about to go on our Florida vacation that we've had planned for awhile now.

We planned on driving down to Florida since we'll be going to both West Palm Beach then over to the Pensacola area. We will be driving from Ohio and I planned it out that we'll be stopping 11-12 hours after driving and staying overnight somewhere along the way.

We are also taking our 1 year old daughter with us to Florida. I told her it would be more cost efficient for us to drive down there than to fly. Not only are we going to have to bring a whole bunch of shit considering my daughter is only one years old, my wife would also be lugging around a ton of shit.

I should also note that I cannot find a direct flight from Cleveland to West Palm for some reason. There's connections on all the flights I have found which I would not like to deal with.

My wife of course thinks I'm a fucking idiot for wanting to drive and wanted me to make a post on here to see if people would flame me for wanting to drive.

Regardless, we're going to have to drive like 9-10 hours from West Palm over to Pensacola. So either way, we're going to have to rent a car which is going to be a bunch of suck.

I'd like to see anybody with similar experiences traveling with their kids. I'll take any helpful info I can get. We're leaving in about a week here.
 


If you fly, you pay more. If you drive, you ride 18 hours with a pissed off wife and possibly screaming daughter.
 
Bringing a one year old anywhere other than the park is trauma. I suggest you skip the whole thing altogether and bring your kid to Disneyland when she's 6 and can have some fun.
 
If you're looking to be unballin:

Drive.

Just make sure your stops coincide with several attractions along the way.

I live in West Palm Beach, BTW. ;)
 
It's super common to drive from Ohio to Florida. It's basically a one day drive to South Ga and then a short second day to West Palm.

I was raised in Ohio and my family lives there now. They fly only when they're going for a short trip and drive 90% of the time.

Go I-77 I-26 and I-95. It's about 1,100 miles. Spend a nice night in Savannah. Your wife will love it there.

If you're looking for flights, Check Southwest and AirTran. They won't show up on Expedia and they specialize in Ohio to Florida trips.

PS. When driving from West Palm to Pensacola be aware of the retirees on the West side of the state will make driving a living hell. And, stay off the Dixie Hwy (Hwy 41) as much as you can. It's a parking lot.
 
I have a 2 year old, since she's been born we've flown to:

san francisco (an hour) ~1 year
hawaii (twice) ~9 months and 16 months
europe (as well as 2 1-2 hour flights between germany/italy and spain/portugal

We've also driven to San Francisco ~3 times (~6 hours)
Took a month long trek up the California/Oregon coasts all the way to Washinton when she was ~3-4 months.


Honestly it's much much easier to drive until they're ~18 months. Just the amount of stuff you have to lug through is a total pain. If you've never flown w/ your child before definitely consider this.

Going through security is a huge pain (they have to be totally taken out of any carrier they're in, shoes off, to check for little bombs, etc), the fact that if you need to feed/change/play with them you can't just pull over and do it on your terms

And if you'er renting a car anyway for a long drive this can be a real pain especially not having your carseat (I once spent 90 minutes in an underground parking lot of a Hertz trying to get some carseat rental hooked into a shitty diesel Mercedes A190 in Paris.

lolz

Good luck
 
First of all, to save aggravation of a one year old being strapped in a carseat for 19+ hours and crying and having to stop very frequently to change diapers - Flying is the right option. Also, to save yourself from a bitching wife for the whole car ride down there. Fly and no bitching, or hear bitching for a long way down there? It will be a long drive.
 
fly there - your time is more valuable also you'll have a happy wife
 
One positive with a connecting flight; you don't have to worry about going through security again.

If you are going to compare costs, make sure you include gas, food, and hotel costs. Also, read the details concerning luggage for the airline costs -- considering all the extra junk you have to bring for the kid, you'll probably be paying extra.

And make sure that kid gets lots of sunscreen and stays out of direct sunlight as much as possible. Florida in July, wtf were you thinking?
 
discoverwebwork said:
First of all, to save aggravation of a one year old being strapped in a carseat for 19+ hours and crying and having to stop very frequently to change diapers - Flying is the right option. Also, to save yourself from a bitching wife for the whole car ride down there. Fly and no bitching, or hear bitching for a long way down there? It will be a long drive.
Click to expand...

Listen woman, the drive is going to be split into 2 days. You are implying we will be driving straight through. At least we will be pulling the car over if there's a little fuss. I'd really like to see you have Alanna sitting on your lap for almost 3 hours when she can barely sit on our laps for 2 minutes at home without wanting to get down.

Flying would be the right option if we didn't have to fucking catch a connection and rent a fucking car and drive it up and across the fucking state.

I also want to thank everybody for their contributions to this thread and listening to my vent.
 
Oh, just as an aside... my wife and I drove from North Carolina up through Virginia to New York and over to Michigan, down to Indiana, then West to Denver when we moved a few years ago. We took a few weeks to do it, visiting relatives and friends and stopping at interesting points.

It was one of the best times of my life; we planned out every stop and visited a lot of scenic areas, including the Wright Brothers monument in Kill Devil Hills, lighthouses along the coast, Niagara Falls, the St. Louis Arch, a huge reproduction of Van Gogh's "Sunflowers", etc. If you can plan out some great stuff to see along the way, the trip there can be fun in itself.
 
discoverwebwork said:
First of all, to save aggravation of a one year old being strapped in a carseat for 19+ hours and crying and having to stop very frequently to change diapers - Flying is the right option. Also, to save yourself from a bitching wife for the whole car ride down there. Fly and no bitching, or hear bitching for a long way down there? It will be a long drive.
Click to expand...

I am so glad that I don't have a bitchy wife. :D
 
After the first one was born Hurricane parties in the Keys didn't seem to make as much sense. Often flying wasn't an option on short notice so we would drive up to NC to visit family.

No matter what you do take extra precautions to prevent diaper rash. When they are strapped in for long periods of time this seems to be more common. If the little one does develop such an irritation EVERYONE'S quality of life will plunge beyond belief! (ask me how I know)

Balmex FTW.
 
Drive. Pissed off wife with music, pissed off passengers that think kids shouldn't be allowed to fly and are allowed to voice this, pissing you off in the process.

Save yourself from getting into a fight, drive that shiznit. Oh, and the money part too.
 
The Marquis Jet Card membership, for example, sells 25-hours at a fixed hourly rate, in a specific type of aircraft, for a minimum starting price of $132,000.
 
Wow drive please? Kids on planes are the worst for all parties involved so don't bother unless its hawaii or across the country (or winter and its all icy and shit).

Women by default are illogical creatures whose actions are controlled by their feelings much more than their brains. Try to explain this to your wife in layman's terms so she can understand it well and your life will be so much easier.
 
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