on travel options
I found this a bit interesting.
I’m going to Philly then NYC and then Pittsburgh late July, early August. I booked a ticket into PHL and a ticket out of PIT (separately, on two different airlines).
Originally I was going to rent a car on Sunday night or Monday morning, drive to NYC (google says 2hr 19 min) and then drive to Pittsburgh on Thursday (google says 7hr 47 min). Then I investigated options:
- Renting a car for the four days: $264, travel time close to 10 hours.
- Train to NYC: $42, travel time 1.5 hours; rent a car on Thursday to drive to Pittsburgh: $105, travel time 7.75 hr.
- Train to NYC: $42, travel time 1.5 hours; fly to Pittsburgh: $84, travel and wait time at the airport: 3.5 hours-ish.
Option 3 is half as long and $138 less than option 1. Neat!
June 4th, 2006 at 6:57 am
If you wanted to save a little on the train, you can take the chinatown bus from Philly to NY. It works out to $10 each way. I took this right after Christmas. It’s pretty cool and economical. Buses leave every half hour from 6:30AM-11:00PM.
June 7th, 2006 at 4:10 pm
Oh, good point, Pat. I didn’t realize there was a chinatown bus from Philly. I knew of the one from Boston.
I already booked my train ticket, though. It’s still fairly cheap, fast and comfortable, so it’s not the worst thing ever.