Parents What is your threshold for driving vs. flying to a meet?

[CuriousCate]

What is your driving distance/time limit?
What is your gray zone of driving distance that leaves you debating if the cost of flying/car rental is worth it?

 

[JBS]

What an awesome poll!

I really hate driving more than 4 hours... however... we will drive up to 8 hours depending on the cost of plane tickets. If tickets are cheap enough... we will fly at anything over 6 hours.

 

[CuriousCate]

To answer my own poll, usually I'm willing to drive a max of 6-ish hours, and on rare occasion, up to 8 hours if there is no affordable flight with great time options available. Which then leads me to debate what my definition of "affordable" is as this seems to keep evolving! And I loathe car rentals...the entire process from waiting for the shuttle to getting back early to stop for gas. I really hate it and would almost rather just drive 8 hours in one shot rather than taking 30 mins to drive to the airport + 1 hr 30 min for security and boarding + 2 hour flight + 20-30 minutes from deplaning to car rental + 1 hour from airport to meet = 5 1/2 hours.

Curious what others feel about it...

 

[mom2newgymnast]

This is one area I have definitely changed in over the years. We used to never fly. The whole family would go to meets and it was just too costly. So we would drive to all meets. The longest were usually 10-12 hours away.

But I got divorced, started at a decently high paying job, her brothers are away at college and now it's usually just the 2 of us flying. So yeah we fly if it's more than 6 hours or so. Sometimes even less. For example, we fly to Atlanta (~5 hours) because I loathe driving to/in Atlanta and the airport is so convenient to the venue and flights are cheap.

This season we are flying to 3 meets and driving to 2. The 2 driving are 1 1/2 hours away and 6 hours away (with no convenient airport). The others are 5, 10 and 12 hours away.

Oh and I never get a rental car. Part of how I justify (to myself) flying is saving on the valet parking, gas and cost of rental. We just uber everywhere.

 

[GymnastMomX2]

I said 4 hours, but realistically all our meets are around 3 hours OR they are across the country, so no choice either way. We did drive to a camp 2 years ago that was about 9 hours away, and... never again lol. We put all our purchases on a Southwest card, so we've been able to earn a companion pass for the second year in a row. This means BOGO flights all year, plus tons of points. So all our flights are "free", assuming southwest flies to an airport nearby. 10/10 recommend this approach! We also don't always rent a car, sometimes we just use Uber, and have a hotel walking distance from the venue. This year we have two travel meets, and I'm not getting a rental car for either.

 

[Milomom]

About 5 hours is our threshold for driving. It also may depend on the day/time of the meet as well.

 

[RTT2]

Driving 4 hours would probably be my max, but our gym doesn’t do any travel meets that I would consider drivable. It’s either meets within our state or meets we have to fly to- I’m not driving 10+ hours. They want the girls to have the experience of flying to meets and adapting to the travel aspect.

 

[Dahlialover]

I generally don’t fly due to concerns about the climate impacts of air travel. Last year, my kid did not attend regionals in Alaska due to the flight and this year he’s skipping a travel meet to CA for the same reason. I’m super sad that they are reconfiguring our region into a geographically massive region extending from Alaska to Colorado to Minnesota. I’m going to have to make more hard decisions about flights once our region expands. I hate it.

 

[Janneke]

We live on an island, so anything outside the island automatically needs flights as the the boat is expensive and slow. If we stay on our island it can be up to a 7 hour drive to the furthest places. Most are within 2 hours though.

 

[Dahlialover]

I’m kinda amazed that anyone would fly somewhere they could drive to in under 6 hours. Our airport is an hour away and very crowded, so we have to leave the house 3 hours before our flight departs. Flying wouldn’t save any time compared to a 4 hour drive and not much on a 6 hour drive. Then there is the cost. In addition to the tickets, Parking at the budget lot outside the airport costs $70/day, plus there is the cost of transportation on the other side. No thanks!

 

[JessSyd]

Our meet that requires the most travel is about 9 solid hours of driving away (so 10 hours if you stop for lunch, fuel etc). Sometimes we fly, sometimes we drive. We have a hybrid car, so certainly from an environmental perspective, the drive is better.

We drove this year and I think I preferred it a bit. Last year one of my daughters’ teammates had their flight cancelled at the last minute, and everything else was booked out because it was school holidays. They had to make an overnight dash in the car to get there in time for day one, and it was stressful for her, and less than ideal. Planning to drive at least takes away that uncertainty!

But we live in the closest interstate large city to it. Most of the people who travel to it pretty much have to fly. The meet’s major sponsor is the tourism org for that state, because they do very well out of it.

 

[mom2newgymnast]

I’m kinda amazed that anyone would fly somewhere they could drive to in under 6 hours. Our airport is an hour away and very crowded, so we have to leave the house 3 hours before our flight departs. Flying wouldn’t save any time compared to a 4 hour drive and not much on a 6 hour drive. Then there is the cost. In addition to the tickets, Parking at the budget lot outside the airport costs $70/day, plus there is the cost of transportation on the other side. No thanks!s a

You definitely have a good point that everyone's situations are different! I probably wouldn't fly much either in your situation. But my airport is pretty small and not stressful. I can get there in 20-25 minutes and park by the terminal for like $20 a day. Driving to Atlanta for me is very stressful and definitely takes way more time and stress than flying despite it only being a 5-6 hour drive without traffic (which never happens in Atlanta). I've driven there plenty of times for meets and I hate it. Plus I can get a round trip flight to Atlanta for under $150, although I usually fly southwest and use points and don't pay anything. And the airport in Atlanta is connected to the meet venue and hotels by free lightrail. Definitely worth it to me!

 

[LCsMom]

Unless it was a really important meet (like my kid made Easterns or something, I wouldn't fly to a meet. It isn't worth it financially and it's not good for the environment and in the scheme of things, it's not going to make or break my kids' gymnastics career. But most of the meets we actually go to are less than 6 hours away so I can say that!

 

[CuriousCate]

You definitely have a good point that everyone's situations are different! I probably wouldn't fly much either in your situation. But my airport is pretty small and not stressful. I can get there in 20-25 minutes and park by the terminal for like $20 a day. Driving to Atlanta for me is very stressful and definitely takes way more time and stress than flying despite it only being a 5-6 hour drive without traffic (which never happens in Atlanta). I've driven there plenty of times for meets and I hate it. Plus I can get a round trip flight to Atlanta for under $150, although I usually fly southwest and use points and don't pay anything. And the airport in Atlanta is connected to the meet venue and hotels by free lightrail. Definitely worth it to me!

So funny - this ATL meet is actually one of the the two that made me ask this question! I like your reasoning here - and thanks for the info about the lightrail!

 

[mom2newgymnast]

So funny - this ATL meet is actually one of the the two that made me ask this question! I like your reasoning here - and thanks for the info about the lightrail!

Unless flights have gone up a lot, it's totally worth it in my opinion. A lot of our parents only stay one night too. Fly in the night before, compete and fly back after the meet.. unless they are in the last session. We always stay at one of the meet hotels right by the convention center (which is also right by the airport) and it's so convenient. Plus if you drive and park there it's like $40 per night. The only downside is the hotel restaurants are way over priced/not that good.. so we usually uber or take the marta downtown (I don't mind the marta, but many of the other parents refuse to take it)

 

[WV Gym Mom]

We are drivers - load up the van and go. We can adjust our travel last minute as needed (don’t have to wait for schedules to come out), bring anything we need, no worries about rental cars or Uber, etc. But my kids are all used to long trips. For instance, we are driving to Orlando next month for a meet, from WV (about 13 hrs drive time).