I was out to dinner with friends speaking about vacationing in Florida. Our friends described their last trip to Florida. It all started with them taking the auto train from Virginia to Florida. I would, in my friends’ place, drive to Florida. I thought it would be interesting in comparing the 2 options.
Driving Option
First Option is to drive. It is 1,254 miles from Tenafly, NJ to Boca Raton, FL. It will take you 19 hours of driving (plus additional time for rest stops and gas fill ups). Assuming your car gets 25 miles a gallon, it will cost roughly $180 in gas (at an average cost of $3.50 per gallon). If you decide to stop overnight, you will, of course, have to factor in the cost of a hotel room ($150 a night on the low end). You should factor in food and beverages in your calculation. In the end, assuming you stop overnight, it will cost you $330 (plus food, beverages and tolls).
Auto Train Option
The Second Option is to take the Auto Train from Lorton, VA to Sanford FL. You will need to drive from Tenafly to Lorton, which is roughly 262 miles and that should take you 4.5 hours. The Auto Train leaves every day at 5:00 pm from Lorton but you need to be there at least 2 hours earlier to have your car loaded onto the Auto Train. According to the Amtrak Website, the Auto Train takes 17.5 hours to travel from Lorton, VA to Sanford, FL. I also learned that it takes about an hour for Amtrak to offload cars from the Auto Train. Finally, you will roughly 3 hours to drive the 215 miles from Sanford to Boca Raton. As I calculate it, will take you a minimum of 27 hours from the time you leave Tenafly to the time you arrive in Boca Raton, FL.
The costs related of traveling by Auto Train include the following: Amtrak charges $285 for the car to travel and then you need to purchase a ticket for you ride. Pricing of course varies but the lowest price I was able to see on Amtrak had a reserved seat costing $95 and a roomette at $285. You should also factor in $68 of gas for the close to 500 miles of driving. You will need to add some cost for food and beverages on this trip option. Absent that, you will be paying on the low end $448 for the reserved seat option and $638 for the roomette option (plus food, beverages and tolls)
Given that it will cost you double to take the train and 40% more in time to take the train compared to driving, why would you take the auto train. The answer depends on the driver’s hatred of driving. By taking the auto train, you skip roughly 800 miles of driving while relaxing on the train where you can eat, sleep (not a good sleep due to the train traveling on commercial tracks) and watch movies and surf the web. You will also be comforted on the train by not having to worry about traffic as opposed to running the risk of construction and accidents while driving. My friends had differing reactions on the Amtrak Auto Train experience. The wife loved it and the husband threatened the wife with divorced if she forced him to do it again.
Flying Option
There is a third option in which you fly from the NY metro area to Florida and then rent a car or ship a car to meet you. This will cost you more but you complete the trip in a matter of hours as opposed to days.
Conclusion
If someone asks me what would I do, I would definitely go with the driving option. I love the flexibility of deciding when I can leave and where I can stop. Also, there at 3 Buc-ees along the way. If you have never been to a Buc-ees, it is hard to fully describe the enjoyment I have every time I visit a Buc-ees. The only problem I have is that I need to add at least 1 hour for each Buc-ees stop!!