For the first time in any generation, business travelers are finding it cheaper to fly or take a train, rather than drive.
Business travelers often take to the road in the comfort of their own cars, where they can regulate the temperature, play their own music and not worry about traveling light. For many business travelers, it's simply more convenient to drive to a destination, especially if the location is within a 5-7 hour drive. Plus, it used to be cheaper to drive. The good old days of $1.25 a gallon are long gone.
With US gas prices now at a nationwide average of $3.22 a gallon, business travelers who drive are feeling the pinch. It's simply become cheaper to fly or use other mass transit options, like Amtrak trains and Greyhound buses.
Planes
When using a discount online ticket broker like SideStep Travel, or bidding for flights on Priceline.com, you can fly cross country and back for under two hundred dollars. Even regular priced outlets like Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz can offer some inexpensive prices for air travel.
Trains
Amtrak has discounted rates for many populations like seniors and the military, but also offers good prices for the average traveler. A Seattle to Vancouver Amtrak run, for example, only costs $28 each way. Amtrak trains are very comfortable, roomy, quiet and often showcase outstanding mountain, shoreline and canyon scenery. The gentle rocking motion of the train is actually soothing. It's possible to get a lot of work done when you travel by train.
And Automobiles
By contrast, driving to Vancouver from Seattle - a trip of only two hours driving time each way - costs more. Filling up, say, a Nissan Pathfinder, costs around $60. Not much more than Amtrak, granted, but you avoid the car lines at the International Border and you won't have to pay for parking in Vancouver, which can run more than CAN$12 a day.
Longer mileage trips start paying back in savings even faster. A drive from San Diego to San Francisco, traffic jams notwithstanding, takes from 8-10 hours. In the same Nissan Pathfinder example, that's around two hundred dollars in gas for a round trip, not including tolls or parking. Flight prices? Expedia shows San Diego to San Fran return flights at $123 (coach seats) for June of 2007.
Bus fares are even more economical, Greyhound's same San Diego to San Fran run costs only $85 with a 7-day advance notice purchase. Many business travelers find bus travel distasteful. Greyhound buses these days are clean however, and have on-board bathrooms, air conditioning, large tinted windows and seats at least as comfortable as coach seats in airplanes.
If You Must Drive
Driving travelers can look online for gas price calculators, or check various websites for lowest gas prices in towns they plan to hit along the way. Do all the usual gas price tricks - proper tire pressure, clean air filters, drive with windows shut...even use a less gas-guzzling car. Or just laugh about high gas prices. Hey, if you don't laugh, you might have to cry.
