Anonymous wrote:My sister and I are planning a trip to Florida (Northern VA to Jacksonville). There'll be a total of 3 adults and 4 children (2, 4, 5, and 6 years) old. We're going for 8 days. Trying to decide whether to drive down or fly. Driving will give us the flexibility of having a car there and flexibility of when we leave and come back. On the other hand, it may be hell to drive down with 4 young children. If we drove, we would do it over 2 days.

How are your kids in the car? My kid was great in the car, so I signed on for a long road trip with another family when he was little. Their kid really struggled, and I wished I'd made a different choice.

Fly. I never drive farther than two hours by car.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've made that trip so many times. Our forever home is at Ponte Vedra Beach (just south of Jax). We are back and forth between DC and home all the time. It's an easy 10-11 hour drive.

Really, I have never made to from Northern VA to Jacksonville in less than 14 hours.

???


Strange! We've done it several times (actually we go from Alexandria to south of Kissimmee (almost Poinciana) and we do that in 13.5 hrs. We stop at all the rest stops and one additional stop for dinner just before or just after the FL border. We leave at 6:30 a.m or 7:00 a.m. and get there at 8:00 or 8:30. It is a long day.... but saves our family of 4 about $2000 in airfare and car rental.

Jacksonville is no problem! You can do it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How tight are finances? I'd fly and rent a car.

Actually, in our situation, driving will cost the same as flying b/c we are renting a minivan plus the one night hotel to and from Florida.

I'd fly in that case

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How tight are finances? I'd fly and rent a car.

Actually, in our situation, driving will cost the same as flying b/c we are renting a minivan plus the one night hotel to and from Florida.

Then flying is a no brainier

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've made that trip so many times. Our forever home is at Ponte Vedra Beach (just south of Jax). We are back and forth between DC and home all the time. It's an easy 10-11 hour drive.

Really, I have never made to from Northern VA to Jacksonville in less than 14 hours.

Are you stopping a lot? It's only about 725 miles (or something like that). We usually travel at night or leave super early in the morning so we don't have to stop as much.

It really is an easy drive.

Anonymous wrote:How tight are finances? I'd fly and rent a car.

Actually, in our situation, driving will cost the same as flying b/c we are renting a minivan plus the one night hotel to and from Florida.

We've done both, and both work. We drove straight through to Amelia Island when DD was 8 weeks old. That wasn't great because she hated her car seat, so we've flown since and usually rented a car (unless it's a really short trip or my parents have a car there). However, the distance really isn't that bad, so we are trying again since we'll be there for a month. We are breaking the drive into two days that sound quite manageable (even with a 3-year-old who still hates the car) and just booked the aforementioned Hilton Garden Inn in Florence. I'm glad to hear it works!

Anonymous wrote:We've made that trip so many times. Our forever home is at Ponte Vedra Beach (just south of Jax). We are back and forth between DC and home all the time. It's an easy 10-11 hour drive.

Really, I have never made to from Northern VA to Jacksonville in less than 14 hours.

My parents live in Palm Coast, an hour south of Jax. We've been making the drive with our kids 9 & 12 since the youngest was 4 mos old. Sometimes we do it in 2 days, and sometimes we leave by 5:30am and power through. We've never flown because we want to have our car.

We like staying at the Hilton Garden in Florence SC when we break up the trip.

We've made that trip so many times. Our forever home is at Ponte Vedra Beach (just south of Jax). We are back and forth between DC and home all the time. It's an easy 10-11 hour drive.

We've made that trip so many times. Our forever home is at Ponte Vedra Beach (just south of Jax). We are back and forth between DC and home all the time. It's an easy 10-11 hour drive.

How tight are finances? I'd fly and rent a car.

Driving isn't terrible. We do it most spring breaks to St. Augustine. One day will be a long one in the car, but we've found it worthwhile to have a car down there.

My sister and I are planning a trip to Florida (Northern VA to Jacksonville). There'll be a total of 3 adults and 4 children (2, 4, 5, and 6 years) old. We're going for 8 days. Trying to decide whether to drive down or fly. Driving will give us the flexibility of having a car there and flexibility of when we leave and come back. On the other hand, it may be hell to drive down with 4 young children. If we drove, we would do it over 2 days.