Bottom line is that the point of my white paper wasn’t whether it is more efficient to fly or to drive or whether people want to read about drive trip ideas. It was that if you do choose to drive (which 85% of travelers do on overnight trips), there should be tools that make trip planning easy.

And as a point of clarification, the stats are that 85% (736m trips by car and 118.6m trips by rental car) of all overnight trips are by car, versus 15% (156.8m trips) by plane and 78% of the $740b in spending on travel in the US is by drivers, not flyers. So we’re not talking about the trips around town, but trips that include at least one overnight. These stats are from Travel Industry Association.

Also, the paper that Chris is referring to in his article was a white paper about travel technology, not media coverage. Travel technology is all geared at the airline traveler, not those that travel by car. That is my beef.

Anytime a website (even a hotel site) ask you WHERE you are going and WHEN, that is dialogue with an air traveler. That dialogue doesn’t work if you are driving. You have to know WHERE you are starting from, HOW far you want to travel each day and whether you want to go by the fastest route or see the countryside by avoiding freeways. Finding things to do or see along the way, places to stay and eat or events to attend is all a part of driving versus flying. Getting there is half the fun.

Anyway, thanks Chris for the article and thanks for those of you who checked out roadescapes.com as a result of his tome.

LOL. Funny one.

As always, good questions.

My answer to your question “Why does travel that deviates from our daily lives get more attention?” is that we are already experts in what is normal and customary. Its the unusual and occasional that’s newsworthy.

I would concur that articles on infrastructure such as wider roads, better public transportation, etc. are great. However, with all due respect to our travel writing friends, those are outside of the purview of the average travel writer. Chris, and his brethren, have expertise in matter of dealing with TSA, missing flights, refunds, travel vouchers etc. What they don’t have is any particular insight into government infrastructure spending, tax policy, or environmental impact anaysis.

Thus, they wisely avoid such topics.

Quite frankly, I don’t need to see more tips on how to drive in the Thanksgiving Hell (yes, I get stuck in I-95 on those days), but I’d like to see articles on how we can prevent the Thanksgiving Traffic Hell. Perhaps we need wider roads. Perhaps we need more trains. Perhaps we need to see our families less. I don’t know.

Also, I was more hinting towards road tips you can take for fun. The
Blue Ridge Parkway, the remainders of Route 66, roads through Amish country, the desert, all those byways all over the US that have stunning views of this wonderful country. They are perfect day trips for everyone.

Anyway, I think we will keep disagreeing. With respect though.

The answer to your questions is fairly straightforward. Travel columns are generally devoted to those aspects of travel which deviate from our daily lives. The greater the deviation from our regular lives, the more ink an issue receives. Since most Americans drive (or are driven) to work on a daily basis, car travel will receive less ink than air travel, since few American fly daily.

However, I would agree that road trips which are longer or different in character from one’s daily commute are perfectly appropriate for inclusion in travel columns. You will notice that during the times when American drive, e.g. Thanksgiving day weekend, and summers, there are more articles devotes to road travel, which is perfectly fine.

With our brand new non-commercial online travel magazine The Red Pin (http://theredpin.net/) we want to sustain the concept of short routes.

In the matter of travel journalism I strongly bellieve in supporting the idea of articles from locals to visitors, to enable interested tourist to find interesting spots off the beaten track of mainstrean travel media.

I saved myself on I-95 because my gas tank was full, and I knew a short cut.

Back to the education: plenty of options. And debate opportunities. There are still people that believe that calling and texting while driving are plenty ok. There are people who drink and drive, “because the alcohol does not affect them”. I dare say 80% of drivers do not know how to merge properly. At least 60% of drivers change lanes without blinking. There are many horribly designed suburbs with poorly programmed intersections. Where’s the debate over roundabouts? France is full of them and they work. Have you ever seen and article on traffic flow problems? Where’s the debate on building more bike lanes. More public transport?

You say you can get from SF to the OC in 2 1/2 hours. And that’s supposedly travel. Why isn’t it travel when people commute 2 1/2 hours a day? I do. Or get stuck in a traffic jam that makes their trip more than 2 1/2 hours.

And even less commute oriented. Why don’t road trips count anymore? They’re awesome. Anyway in the US, there are beautiful roads that people drive by without knowing. With so many people fed up with air travel, why no attention for them?

Thanks for the kind words. You hit the nail on the head. You can work all day, not miss any time from work, thenf ly after hours, even though you are half asleep. It would be imprudent to do so then begin a 6 hour drive at 10pm

If you are a very frequent flyer and don’t check bags, you can easily make the entire trip in under 2 1/2 hours, from start to arrival at your rental car. If you check bags you need an additional hour.

@Jasper

There is plenty to write about in driving. However, much of it is not in the travel section such as oil prices, automanufacturers bailout, etc.

Your examples prove the point of why air travel dominates in the travel section. As you stated, you got stuck on I-95. An optimum solution, i.e. go to the mall, presented itself to you. presumably without any assistance by Chris, and you availed yourself accordingly. No further discussion was required.

Conversely, had your flight been substantially delayed, there would be issues of rebooking, irregular ops, compensation for being bumped, food vouchers, hotel vouchers, discussions on the merits of joining airline clubs, etc. All of which make good reporting.

I submit that airline travel presents challenges to both the experienced and inexperienced travelers that driving simply does not. Which is why airline travel will dominate the travel section for the foreseeable future.

Living in SF and needing to go the OC (Orange County) for the holidays used to be a time vs money calculation for me. By the time I got to the airport, checked things in, arrived at my destination, got baggage claim…that was only a few hours less (in theory) than if I were to drive down on I-5. But I guess I still decide to fly so my leadfoot doesn’t get sore and I don’t have to be alert for 6-7 hours with the L.A. traffic and the monotony of I-5.

So why does the government bother me so much when I fly?

On my last car trip (yesterday), I got stuck on I-95. I just went to the mall.
Last time I flew, little to no delay.

So why again all the attention to flying? There is plenty to write about in driving.

I think it is because travel writers like flying more than driving.

Ms. Fitzgerald makes 2 substantial errors which undermine the credibility of the position, which is unfortunate as its a discussion worth having.

The first error is in comparing the three trillion miles driven with the ones flown. The three trillion miles include mundane and daily trips to the work, school, grocery store, and movies. A better comparison would be to determine how many miles American drive outside of their locale, i.e. a road trip. I have every confidence that it will be a fraction of the 3 trillion mile figure being bandied about..

Assuming that we can pare down that 3 trillion miles number to a more accurate number, we make another error in making a direct comparison between miles driven and miles flown. The dynamics of air travel are far more complicated than the dynamics of driving. As such, air travel will receive the lions share of the travel news.

Consider your last road trip. You didn’t have to concern yourself with ontime arrivals, TSA, the economics or privacy of CLEAR, crying babies (unless their yours), insufficient seat space, armrest etiquette, surly flight attendants threatening to call the FBI, issues of whether frequent travelers are better treated, how much baggage can I bring, etc.

The average flyer, including frequent travelers, need far more assistance, and have more questions, than the same person driving. The fact that the biggest travel site is called FLYERtalk, not DRIVERtalk, should illustrate this fact plainly.

And finally, in a way, driving gets more news than flying. The difference is that driving issues are covered from a variety of sources, not just the travel section. The big news today is the bail out of the big three US auto makers. Not part of the travel section, but driving news nonetheless.