We recently attended a wedding in Houston, TX. The outdoor wedding was on a Saturday evening, and in September 2021, a high period of Covid activity. As we were making plans for this trip, we strongly considered and wavered between driving and flying. Below, I lay out what both options would have looked like and the costs and benefits for each. We ultimately decided to fly, but both were reasonable options with their own pros and cons.
Driving: Nashville, TN to Houston, TX (12 hours + stops)
The total drive time to Houston, TX is 12 hours without stops. For more on how we handle long road trips with kids, read more here.
This distance is over the limit of what we would want to do in one day, so our plan would be to split up the drive. On Thursday, after work we would leave Nashville after school and work and drive 5.5 hours to Little Rock, AR. There is a Tru brand Hilton along the path that was going for $90 or 28k points for the night we would need. This would leave us a 7.5 drive on Friday to get us to Houston in time for dinner.
On the way back, we would again split the trip. On Sunday morning, after a breakfast with the wedding party, we would drive from Houston, TX to Memphis, TN. With stops, this would take around 10 hours, getting us to the hotel around 9pm. There are multiple Hyatt Place brand hotels in the Memphis area for 5,000 points. Because we had school and work requirements the next day, we would wake up at 5am to finish the remaining portion of the drive.
Read more about getting started with points here. For both hotels, I made reservations for the nights needed with points and was able to cancel without penalty once we confirmed we wouldn’t be needing the rooms.
Driving recap: 14 hours each way split up, 2 additional hotel nights.
Pros: Cheaper (Gas + Hotel <$400), less time indoors breathing other people’s air.
Cons: Missed work on Friday, early morning drive on Monday, 28 hours in a car.
Flight details
We purchased tickets from Southwest Airlines for $180 RT/person. You can also use Southwest points. You can earn Southwest points from Southwest Credit Cards or by transferring Chase points using the Chase portal. Because we weren’t very flexible with our dates, the tickets were a little expensive. Usually, if you can fly on a Tuesday – Thursday, the cost is lower. Read more about tips for airline trips here.
Getting There: Nashville (BNA) to Houston (IAH) Fri 2:10p – 4:20p (2hr 10 m)
Coming Back: Houston to Nashville Sun 4:50p – 6:40p (1hr 50m)
Flight recap: 2-hour flight each way.
Pros: Able to do a partial work day on Friday, less time in a car with kids.
Cons: Higher costs (flights + car rental ~$1,000), indoor spaces with Covid risk.
Airport Lounges
When traveling with layovers or to new cities, we always check the local airport website and the Priority Pass Lounge website prior to the trip. The Chase Sapphire Reserve card (in addition to others) comes with Priority Pass access. This card gets you access to various airport lounges. It is much more common internationally. The Houston airport had several options, and we ate an early dinner at Cadillac Mexican Kitchen. Using the Priority Pass, we were able to take $56 off of our $80 bill.
Other travel perks
Another perk you can get from several credit cards we have used is Global Entry/Pre-Check. This is always helpful for avoiding long lines and spending as little time as possible with others. After you activate your credit card, you’ll use it to pay for the Global Entry fee and get reimbursed immediately. If you want more on this particular benefit and how to use a credit card to receive it for free, check out our tips here. The cards below are ones that we’ve used and are very pleased with, but there are definitely more options if something else suits your family and travel goals better.
Driving in Houston
Something to consider when comparing flying versus driving is additional costs and logistics. If we had driven, we could have gone straight to our hotel.
Since we chose to fly, we had to pay an additional cost to rent a car. We like to use costcotravel.com We continue to check in on the prices and will rebook if the price lowers. Our cost for the car rental was $156 for 3 days. Even though we landed at 4:20p, we didn’t arrive at our hotel until an hour and a half later as we had to collect our checked bags, take a shuttle to the rental car center, wait in a long line, and drive 30 minutes north of the city. This is another thing to keep in mind when comparing time differences between flying and driving. It’s not just the flying time but the time arriving earlier and time spent at the airport after.
Other Considerations
If you have items such as bikes for races, fishing, or skiing items, the ease of driving vs. flying may also be something to consider in your decision-making. We made an IKEA stop in Houston for some curtains and packed them up in a suitcase by themselves to bring home. Southwest offers free checked bags, so this was a reasonable cost-effective option. Driving would have eliminated the need for this consideration.
In addition, if we had driven instead, we could have considered bringing our puppy along for the trip if we had a pet-friendly hotel and a safe place to leave her on adventures. But that wasn’t an option we considered on our flight, so we paid for a dog-sitter in Nashville, an added cost that may or may not have applied if driving.
Hotel in Spring, TX
The wedding party set aside a block of rooms at the Hilton Garden Inn nearby to the venue. I really enjoyed this hotel. All the staff were very friendly and kind. There was an outdoor pool and hot tub we enjoyed. They updated their free breakfast offering to a dining credit that we used for a to-go breakfast we ate by the pool one day and some cheesecake and drinks another day. An enjoyable stay. I’m not sure we would stay here again as it’s far from the city, but if we find ourselves in this area, we were impressed by this hotel and would really think about it.
