My wife and I took a trip to Niagara Falls in Oct. of 2007. We first talked about flying and this was before things got really absurd at the airports but when I checked prices and travel times I came to the conclusion that we could be more than halfway there by car before we could get to our destination airport and then we would need to rent a car. That did it for me, we simply drove up and had a nice long vacation, going to Vermont and seeing Lake Champlain and all that with no airport hassles. I refuse to go anywhere that I would have to fly now unless it is somehow a life or death matter and I don’t think that is going to happen.
You really do have to go pretty far to make flying cost and time effective. What with the time involved in getting through the airports, the risk of delayed flights, picking up luggage if you’re unfortunate enough to have to take some, car rental costs, etc, you need to have about an 8 hour drive to break even.
Sadly, my oldest daughter is out in LA for grad school and we’re across the country. Flying is the only realistic way for her to get back.
Besides, she bought her airline tickets back in September, while you could still get flights for Christmas at a somewhat reasonable rate.
Then this (bleep) happened.
I’m not sure what she’ll do but hopefully this will settle down some by the time she has to fly. Course, she’s so skinny that she couldn’t effectively hide anything on her person. And the TSA personnel at Rochester and Syracuse TO DATE have not been unreasonable, not like I’ve heard of elsewhere. But they’re pretty small airports.