Allen On Travel

A 30 year veteran of world travel (but knows nil about Orlando-area attractions), Will Allen III writes about his weekly odysseys by air on business and how the airlines rob him--and you--of time, the most precious commodity on earth. Time: It's all we have, and the airlines routinely take it from us. This blog challenges the airlines to keep their basic promises.

My Photo
Name:
Location: Raleigh, North Carolina, United States

Born 1948 in Kinston, NC and raised there in beautiful eastern North Carolina, I now live in Raleigh and commute around the country and the world.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Road Trip Times Two

What’s better than driving 400 miles from Raleigh, NC to York, PA (instead of flying)? Well, driving another 200 miles from York, PA to JFK Airport, New York the very next morning (instead of flying). That’s what I did this week to get to JFK to board the inaugural OpenSkies flight to Amsterdam. (I had, and have, business in York, PA early and late in the week which necessitated the detour.)


Truth be told, I’d like to have taken the train, but one wasn’t available to or from York, Pennsylvania. Here are some highlights and short impressions of the trip:

Excellent time made Raleigh to York (10:15 AM – 4:15 PM), just 6 hours including stops for gas, food and bio-breaks. Not bad when considering the task of circumnavigating the greater Washington metro area.

Gas was cheaper and cheaper per gallon going north: $3.60 in NC to $3.20 in Virginia to $2.95 in York. Go figure. The lingering effects on refinery capacity of Hurricane what’s-its-name that hit Galveston? Sure made for a cheap trip.

Today gas prices went up again to $3+ per gallon in NJ and NY en route to JFK.

As usual, the worst part of both trips was the crawl and snarl around Washington and Baltimore. Why is this so bad now? It was far worse than northern New Jersey and getting through 3 NYC boroughs to park at JFK.

The weather was beautiful, sunny and bright, which enhanced my appreciation of the bucolic countryside in PA and western NJ. The fall foliage in those environs was as pretty as the autumnal landscapes of Vermont and New Hampshire last weekend.

Only one rock hit the windshield and left no mark in 600 miles. That’s remarkable.


In summary, I maintain after a half dozen road trips under my belt to avoid flying in the past two years that driving on its worst day is still far better than flying. And far cheaper, as long as gas prices remain where they are now.

Bottom line: I'll be doing more road trips in lieu of flying.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home