If you’re planning a road trip, you may have wondered what the cost of driving vs. flying would be – especially with gas prices being at all-time highs all summer.
While we can assume that driving will usually be cheaper than flying (unless you redeem your travel rewards for a free flight), at what point does taking a plane become worth it?
Of course, the answer will be different depending on you and your travel plans, but we took a look at the cost of driving vs. flying to get to the bottom of it.
Here’s a cost analysis of both money and time.
Driving vs. flying: The pros and cons
There are many factors to consider when you decide whether you want to be air-bound or take a road trip.
The most obvious, and maybe most important for you, is the cost. But there are plenty of other things to consider, like time wasted in transit, your level of comfort, and your overall enjoyment.
So let’s look at the pros and cons of each option:
| Travel option | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| Flying | * Speed: Get there today * Time: Spend more time at your destination | * Money: Flights can be expensive * Dignity: Lost during security screenings * Uncertainty: At the mercy of delays and cancellations |
| Driving | * Money: The savings rack up quickly * Flexibility: You decide when you leave and how you get there | * Speed: It will take much longer * Sanity: Choose your road trip partners carefully. “Are we there yet?!” * Time: You will have less time at your final destination |
Looking at the chart above, time and money are the most important factors to consider. But happiness matters too. If you hate airport security or the idea of sitting in a car for hours, then your choice will be easy.
If money is no object, the world is your oyster. Choose whichever option will give you the most joy.
But there are other things to consider. As always, money isn’t everything.
The cost of time
Limited by time? Need to get to a wedding on a weekend and be back in time for work on Monday? Fly.
Do you just want to get there now? Fly!
Depending on your career, vacation hours, and budget, maybe this option isn’t for you – and this can be true for a lot of people, a lot of the time. If these factors mean flying isn’t ideal, you might want to consider driving.
If you have a lot of time but not a lot of money, it's cheaper to drive. This is usually the case when kids aren’t in school, like during Christmas, March Break, or summer vacation.
But how far is too far? Distance can be your enemy. You don’t want to spend 3 days on the road just to spend one day at your destination and drive back the next day.
Travelling as a group
The savings you get by driving increase significantly if you're travelling with a group.
The cost of plane tickets can add up quickly, whether you’re travelling with your kids or your best friends. But when you choose to drive it’s the opposite – the costs drop exponentially the more people you travel with.
Driving with friends can be great since you can split the cost of gas, and it provides more entertainment since you have someone to chat, sing, and generally interact with along the journey.
But what if you’re travelling with your kids? Now, your choices become:
- Take your kids on a road trip, and listen to, “Are we there yet?” the whole time – plus probably hearing Baby Shark a few dozen times.
- Pay for a plane ticket for each of your kids and yourself – whatever that price tag might add up to. Yuck!
Driving allows more flexibility
If you want to embrace your inner Clark Griswold, then you'll rejoice when you hear that there are more benefits to driving than just saving money. These include:
- Taking the scenic route, seeing the sights, and making your journey part of the destination.
- Creating an epic road-trip playlist and enjoying some (very loud) carpool karaoke.
- No extra baggage fees at the airport – you can pack what you want, as long as it fits into your car.
- No airport security, delays, or any of the other airport annoyances.
- Once you arrive, you can still drive – no Ubers, taxis, or figuring out public transport.
When you’re on a strict schedule filled with layovers and gates on the other side of the airport, travelling can feel a lot more stressful than just sitting in a car for 10 hours.
The cost of driving vs. flying
But for most people, it all comes down to money. If you’re faced with a 10 hour road trip or an 8 hour flight (with layovers), which is your better option?
Well, there are many things to take into consideration when trying to calculate the cost of driving vs. flying – so let’s take a look at those first.
What to consider when calculating the cost of driving vs. flying
Here are 4 major considerations to take into account when trying to calculate the cost of driving vs. flying.
1. Where is your starting and end point?
Will you be travelling to and from a small town or a big city? This is a major point that can seriously increase the cost of your flight.
If you’re flying from Toronto to LA, you’ll likely be able to get a relatively cheap nonstop flight that runs 3 times a day. You’ll also be able to take the train or bus right to the airport, so won’t need to worry about a car.
But if you’re flying from a rural city in Nova Scotia to an equally rural town in Connecticut, you’ll have to consider extra flights, layovers, and the cost of getting to and from the airport.
For example, if you live 2 hours away from the airport, you’ll have to consider the gas needed to get there and back, plus the parking fees (unless you have someone to drive you). Then, you’ll probably have to land in Boston and plot out a course to drive from there to Connecticut, which is another 2 hours away…it can add up quickly.
2. How many people are travelling with you?
When you’re driving, the cost of travel can be shared equally among travellers (unless you’re driving with children who can’t pay for gas just yet). The group can split the gas bill equally and pay for their own food, making the cost per person less the more people you can stuff in the car.
But when you’re flying, your cost will increase with every person that’s added – since they each need to pay for a ticket, baggage fees, food, etc.
So if you’re a larger group, driving may be even more cost effective than usual. But if you’re solo, flying to your destination may be closer in price to driving than you think.
3. Your car’s fuel economy and the cost of gas
Another huge cost to consider is your car’s fuel economy and the current cost of gas at the time of your road trip. There are a couple tools you can use to get this info:
- You can find your car’s fuel economy in your driver’s manual or online (here’s a site where you can search for your car’s make and model).
- As for the cost of gas, here is CAA’s webpage that tracks the average price of gas across the country, even broken down by province.
- You can also use the GasBuddy tool to see how much your trip would cost in gas.
For the purposes of the examples below, let’s assume you’re driving a decent car with average fuel efficiency (9L/100KM combined city and highway driving) and that gas costs $2/L.
4. Cost of wear and tear on your car
But we also need to include the estimated cost of driving your car all these extra kilometres.
Using numbers from CAA’s calculator, we estimated a cost of 25 cents per kilometre in increased depreciation, plus 11 cents in average repairs – coming to a total of $0.37 for every kilometre driven.
Including gas, our cost for driving calculation went like this:
($0.37 x KM driven) + Cost of gas = Total cost of driving
Now let’s calculate the costs of driving vs. flying
With all that in mind, it’s time to see how driving vs. flying pans out in terms of money and time across a few different scenarios:
- a short trip
- a middle-length trip, and
- a long trip.
And let’s see how 4 scenarios work out for each length trip:
- flying from a big city,
- flying from a small city,
- driving from a big city,
- driving from a small city.
For the purpose of our examples, let’s assume you’re travelling with 4 people – 3 friends or family members, plus yourself. You guys are planning on going on your trip 3 months from now.
There are a few things to note:
- These numbers may vary for you since ticket prices often fluctuate, and the distance can depend on what route you prefer to take.
- And for long trips, our time estimates don’t include the rest stops you should probably take before driving 40 hours straight. As you know, these stops will usually include buying food or snacks, or maybe even some fun touristy items.
- Of course, all prices are estimated and are subject to change for a variety of reasons – so take exact numbers with a grain of salt. They’re included here to demonstrate possible differences between driving and flying.
- We didn’t include any baggage fees with the airplane tickets, plus any other charges that would incur (such as rental cars or public transportation costs).
- All prices include a 13% sales tax.
With that said, let’s get cracking.
The short trip
Going away for the long weekend? Here are 2 examples of a short trip around 1,000km.
| Starting point | Flying (4 tickets) | Driving |
|---|---|---|
| Big city (Toronto – Montreal) | * Time: 1h20min * Total Cost: $741 * Cost per person: $185 | * Time: 10h40min (1,084km) * Total Cost: $593 * Cost per person: $148 |
| Small city (Saint John – Halifax) | * Time: 8h50min * Total Cost: $4,077 * Cost per person: $1,019 | * Time: 8h2min (824km) * Total Cost: $455 * Cost per person: $114 |
For short trips, the flights are up to 9x more expensive, but can be 4x faster, depending on whether you’re starting at a small airport (there are more layovers involved when flying from a small airport).
The middle trip
For this example, we used the same destinations, just switched them around. It didn’t make too much difference in price either way.
| Starting point | Flying (4 tickets) | Driving |
|---|---|---|
| Big city (Toronto – Saint John) | * Time: 4h
* Total Cost: $1,156 * Cost per person: $289 | * Time: 26h40m (2,560 km) * Total Cost: $1,344 * Cost per person: $336 |
| Small city (Saint John – Toronto) | * Time: 4h1min
* Total Cost: $1,022 * Cost per person: $255 | * Time: 26h40m (2,560 km) * Total Cost: $1,344 * Cost per person: $336 |
The flights on the middle trip were almost equal in cost but flying was 3x faster.
The long trip
But let’s say you’re really going all out on your trip. Here’s what the numbers look like.
| Starting point | Flying (4 tickets) | Driving |
|---|---|---|
| Big city (Toronto – Vancouver) | * Time: 9h40min * Total Cost: $1,263 * Cost per person: $316 | * Time: 82h (8,702km) * Total Cost: $4,348 * Cost per person: $1,087 |
| Small city (Saint John – Edmonton) | * Time: 17h * Total Cost: $4,664 * Cost per person: $1,166 | * Time: 92h (11,518km) * Total Cost: $4,922 * Cost per person: $1,231 |
On longer trips from a larger airport, it seems it’s significantly cheaper to fly – driving is 3x the price and 8x the time!
And from the smaller airport, the cost is about the same, but it takes 5x as long – and that doesn’t include the overnight stops during your 92 hour journey.
Factoring in travel rewards to the fly or drive decision
There is one more aspect you should consider if you’re worried about cost.
If you’re with the right travel rewards program or have the right travel card, you could pay for most or all of your flight with rewards – essentially giving it to you for free.
There isn’t really an equivalent for road trips unless you have a rewards program that lets you buy gas cards with points. Even then, you have to consider the wear on your car.
Not to mention some airlines will have fantastic deals on their tickets, something ever-rising gas prices can’t compete with.
What’s my carbon footprint when driving vs. flying?
When we think about what we’re saving, we need to consider environmental costs as well. Let’s compare the carbon footprints of each trip.
For the sake of simplicity, we’ll just look at the trips from Toronto. This is the total amount of emission for our 4-person example.
| Trip from Toronto | Flying | Driving |
|---|---|---|
| Short (to Montreal) | 1.2 tonnes of CO2e | 0.371 tonnes of CO2e |
| Middle (to Saint John) | 1.8 tonnes of CO2e | 1.0 tonnes of CO2e |
| Long (to Vancouver) | 4.6 tonnes of CO2e | 2.9 tonnes of CO2e |
A rule of thumb for your environmental concerns: driving will always be less harsh than flying, but it’s not a big enough difference to worry over if you can’t afford the time costs. If you’re travelling solo, flying can even be slightly better than driving on long trips.
Driving vs. flying – Money:time ratio
The answer is simple when you look at it: the cost in time versus the cost in money shifts dramatically as the trip shortens.
But the longer you drive, the less you save compared to the amount of time you spend getting there.
Think of it like a working wage: each hour in the car needs to be worth it in terms of the money you make in savings.
If we look at our examples above, here’s how they shake out in terms of which is better (and which can make you a decent living wage).
| Trip | Cost difference (driving vs. flying) | Time difference (driving vs. flying) | Hourly wage (per person) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toronto – Montreal | Driving saves $37 | Flying saves 8 hours | Make $4.50 an hour by driving |
| Saint John – Halifax | Driving saves $905 | Driving saves 1 hour | N/A, driving is better |
| Toronto – Saint John | Flying saves $47 | Flying saves 10 hours | N/A, flying is better |
| Saint John – Toronto | Flying saves $81 | Flying saves 10 hours | N/A, flying is better |
| Toronto – Vancouver | Flying saves $771 | Flying saves 72 hours | N/A, flying is better |
| Saint John – Edmonton | Flying saves $65 | Flying saves 75 hours | N/A, flying is better |
Our examples didn’t find a lot of scenarios where driving was better, but they definitely do exist. If you’re looking at around 1,000 kilometers or under, driving is most likely better, though your hourly wage won’t be very high.
But you also have to take into account things like holidays, where flying will be much more expensive than our scenarios. In that case, you’ll have to adjust your numbers to compare it against driving yourself.
So, is there a rule of thumb when it makes sense to drive or fly?
For the short trip around 1,000km? Drive.
Middle Trip? Your choice. There can be savings by driving, but it starts to be less of an obvious choice.
Long Trip? Fly, unless you want to see more sights.
Is it about the journey? Or is it about the destination? Let your answer be your guide.
What about you? Have you had to choose between driving and flying before? What was your decision? Would you make the same choice again? Let us know in the comments below.
FAQ
What is the price difference between driving vs. flying?
The difference in cost between driving and flying depends on several factors, including the distance being travelled, the number of passengers, your chosen vehicle, the price of gas, and the size of your origin airport. From our fictitious scenarios, flying in Canada can cost anywhere from 2x to 9x more than driving, but it also takes 2x to 16x longer.
Is flying or driving better for the environment?
Driving is always a more environmentally friendly choice than flying, especially if you have an electric or hybrid vehicle. You could also consider renting an electric or hybrid car for the journey. However, the differences in carbon emissions aren’t significant enough to matter if finances are your primary concern.
How do I know if I should fly or drive?
Whether you should fly or drive is a personal decision. What matters is the factors that are most important to you, such as cost, time, and environmental effects. Figuring out the cost, time commitment, and environmental impact and then weighing these options against each other will help. Ultimately, your comfort level will likely be the deciding factor.
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