I’ve confirmed the time off of work and booked the hotel room for Grand Prix Richmond the first weekend of February.
So now the grand question is, should I get there by plane, train, or automobile? I’m very much leaning toward driving down right now, since it looks cheapest, but I’m not looking forward to a 10+ hour drive. Is there a good cheap alternative somewhere that I’m missing? Money’s the main factor that I’m looking at, as I am willing to drive down. But it seems like there ought to be a better way. I think that if it were just me, it might be just as cheap to fly, bus, or take a train down, but with two of us, it costs the same to use the car, and costs twice as much via mass transit. I may be carpooling with others in the area that are going down, but that’s very up in the air right now.
If cheap is what you’re looking for, then driving has a flat fee of around $75-$115 roundtrip in fuel, plus a little for the wear on the car (1,000 miles is significant, but probably only worth around another $100 or so in maintenance). Given how close we are to the departure date, any airline ticket you find is going to be $200+/person for traditional carriers, and JetBlue doesn’t begin Boston-Richmond service until April. Southwest flies to Norfolk, but that would mean another 100 miles of transit, which would certainly put you way past driving cost.
After considering parking expenses, you’re probably looking at paying at least $300 more to fly.
The Train is significantly better, although signficantly longer. The train trip is 10-11 hours, about as long as driving. If you take the train from Providence (which I recommend — parking is only $7.50/day), you can catch an overnight train around 10:30 Friday night and arrive in Richmond around 11:00 the following morning, spending the night aboard the train. The cost for this option is around $100-$130/person, for a total cost of around $220-$280. Still more than twice the cost of driving.
I think you’re definitely best-off driving from a financial point of view, but remember to give yourself at least a two-hour margin of error for getting lost or tied up coming down the East Coast. Things can get hairy on the highways between New York and Washington.
What about some sort of bus?