How do kids from far away travel to and from home?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Alabama
1

D and I just scheduled our trip to visit Alabama and bought our plane tickets. One thing we ran into it that there are no direct flights from Boston (or Providence, our two closest airports) to Birmingham and the options for connecting flights that we were presented with weren’t very attractive. We found that total travel time for flying into Birmingham was about the same as or longer than flying direct to Atlanta then driving. We ultimately ended up booking through Southwest to Nashville because it was only a little farther than Atlanta, but it was half the price.

But, next year if D attends, she will be traveling on her own and renting a car and driving long distances won’t be an option. This means handling connecting flights on her own through unfamiliar airports, or somehow getting transportation to Atlanta or Nashville so she can go direct. Are there services that will transport kids to these other airports, or is Birmingham the only real option?

She has never flown anywhere before with a connecting flight because I hate them and have never booked them for family travel.

2

Hi,

Well, for this trip, pretend that she’s alone. Let her find the location of the connecting flight. Be there only to provide “desperate back-up”. The whole process will be a teaching moment!

There are shuttles from B’ham to T’town for times she’s flying alone.

3

Sorry, I wasn’t clear. The flight we booked is direct from Boston to Nashville so no connecting flights on this trip.

I did consider booking connecting flights just to give her practice, but we got flights direct to Nashville for $161 rt per person. Flying into Birmingham was in the neighborhood of $340 pp for all options. I couldn’t bring myself to spend that much extra.

4

I would start looking at schools that can be accessed with one flight. Does UA have shuttles from Atlanta or Nashville Airport? Otherwise are there schools that she likes as well that are easier to get to?

5

We are flying from Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta, then driving, so I feel your pain.

If I come across a shuttle from BNA or ATL will post it here for future reference.

6

I recently saw on Facebook that a group of parents organized a greyhound bus to take students to the airport. It only goes once so it’s not a regular scheduled shuttle, but there are always carpools too!

7

I just recently joined the UA Student Ride Share group on FB…in a word: WONDERFUL! There are maybe a dozen different post categories sorted by destination, and you just find the one applicable to your situation (i.e., you don’t just post your request and have to wade thru 100s of messages to find stuff).

I noticed there IS a shuttle between Tuscaloosa and Atlanta, $75 return, p.p. Here are a few details from their flyer for Thanksgiving, for example (not sure if CC allows certain things, so I took them out) . You can join this FB group yourself, or PM me for further info.

Departure date: Tuesday, 11/24/15 @ 12:00 (noon) Central time and
Return date: Sunday, 11/29/15 from Atlanta Airport @ 6:00pm Eastern time - sites TBA
If paying with CC, please fax to (205) 247- 5152 (personal fax machine not shared by others) or
Email : [deleted]
Question? Cliff Dorsey [deleted#] P. O. Box 20207 Tuscaloosa, AL 35402

The administrator of this Student Ride Share group is super organised and deletes all the extraneous info/posts, and only the relevant posts are on there. There is a Nashville ride group; a Texas ride group; a Chicago/IL ride group; a NOVA/Maryland ride group; South Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Michigan…and a couple more.

Don’t let apparent lack of transportation stand in the way of attending UA! With ~55% of its students from OOS, you are not going to be the only one in this boat, or, er, plane. :wink:

8

There is also Amtrak, which goes through Tuscaloosa.

9

It’s only unfamiliar the 1st time u go thru it.

I’m sure your 18 yr can manage a trip down the Eastern seaboard w same language, same currency, same cellphone carrier, same time zone. We’re not putting a man on the moon.

10

Once my kids were young teens, whenever we went to an airport we (parents) deliberately held back and let them lead the way - so they could read the signs and figure out where was check-in, the relevant gate, baggage claim, etc.

Handling a connecting flight is truly no big deal. You get off at gate B16 and you make your way to gate C52 (or whatever). Do it once, you’ll know how to do it forever. With all the apps these days, you know exactly what gate your planes are arriving / departing and whether they are delayed.

11

No direct flights for us either without driving to Atlanta and Chicago so that’s not an option. My son is taking the shuttle during Christmas to Birmingham airport. I think it meets somewhere on campus so not hard to manage that part. Then he should be able to figure out how to get on connecting flights. Seriously if he can’t manage this I’m not sure he belongs in college. The downside of no direct flights is I think he will be spending the same amount of time getting home as he would driving but there’s no way I want him driving home when ice and snow might be an issue. I will ask him what his favorite war book is and order it for him so he has something good to read. Book, phone and computer should keep him busy on flights and waiting during his connection.
For thanksgiving he is going home with his roommate who lives a couple hours away so he won’t have to deal with the hassle of flights during the busy holiday.

12

@me29034 I am puzzled why this is problematic. If your daughter is mature enough to attend university so far from home why is catching a connecting flight a cause for concern? She will out of necessity make decisions on her own as she navigates her way and determines what path to take as she is presented with a myriad of situations germane to young adults living on their own for the first time.There are many flight options between Boston and Birmingham that are a single change of plane and total travel time is under 5 hours.
In answer to your query though, my daughter attends school approximately 2,000 miles from home and there are no direct flights between our locations. She takes a connecting flight and once she arrives there is a car service to pick her up as the university is in a rural location and the nearest airport is an hour and a half away. I simply make certain that she is not booked on the last flight of the day and that there is enough layover that if the originating flight is delayed a bit the connecting flight will still be able to be caught. The car service monitors the flight and will stay until she arrives and then safely deposits her back to her dorm.
If the University of Alabama is the school your daughter feels is her dream school the fact that a connecting flight needs to be taken shouldn’t come to be a determining factor in my opinion. Unfamiliarity with travel is a temporary situation that is easily remedied. One trip home and back and she’s now an expert !

13

Parking at ATL is expensive, flying from BHM is better.

14

Flying back and forth from OOS can be expensive, but it should be an anticipated part of your school expense if your daughter decides to go to UA (or anyother school). For your family of three, it is cheaper this time to fly into Nashville and then drive, but she will not have that option. You will just have to figure that you will need to pay whatever to get her from home to school and visa versa. (We drive for drop off and pick up, they fly for everything else.) Believe me it hurts as I have two that attend. They actually only fly home and back three times a year - once in the fall (either fall break or Thanksgiving, their choice), for Christmas break and for Spring break. We have been fortunate to pay $200 round trip for each and unfortunate to have to pay $600 round trip. Then add transportation to and from the airport if a friend cannot drive (can be anywhere from $25 to $100 one way depending if you want student drivers or insured professional drivers). If she decides to attend UA, she will be able to handle the connecting flights and the possible problems because she will have to, just like you would if needed. Good luck on your decision and roll tide.

15

As a parent of a freshman, 15 hour drive, the biggest thing I have found is the need to book extremely early for anything if you want a lower price & some options.

DS never flew before move in day. I explained everything to him as we went, locating gates, times, etc. We had a 5 hour delay so it turned into a 12 hour day.

He was going to stay during Thanksgiving, but I felt bad because fall break the campus was fairly empty and his roommates wont’ be there. So I booked late & was not able to find anything at Birmingham. Luckily, there is a shuttle going to Atlanta, which has far more options, but with travel there, flights, and travel home from airport, he is still looking at a 12 hour day. A little shorter than our ride, but not by much. The shuttle is not a normally scheduled event, a parent on the FB page arranged it. Best bet would still be Birmingham.

Amtrak is a very long trip to NE. I think it was almost 24 hours just to get him to PA. Long time to sit on train, so not really practical. Maybe in a pinch OR booking a roomette, but that gets very expensive.

I am not finding the ride share page very helpful. Lots of repeated requests. Some people have said you need to wait until it’s closer to the actual break, but then if you need to fly you need to do it early. There are kids listed who do the airport route for a reasonable fee,but so far DS is only doing the main breaks, so he has the school shuttle.

I have been told that once the kids get older & move off campus, they are less inclined to come home. As it stands now, it can be accomplished, but I am finding it rather stressful & expensive.

16

I was curious to see what kinds of flights go from Birmingham to Boston, and so I ran a search on Expedia, and there are tons of options via multiple airlines that will get your student from Birmingham to Boston with just one stop. And you don’t even have to go through Atlanta. But even if you did buy through Delta, for example, and your student had to hang out at the Atlanta airport for a while, she will do fine. Really, she will.

We are out of state in Florida, though we can drive to Tuscaloosa in about 12 hours. My student has taken the shuttles to the Birmingham airport - awesome service - and then flown Southwest to our home (have to buy those tickets during the summer to get the best schedules price, at least in my experience.) This year, he has a car, and while we will be driving up to see him for Thankgiving, when he comes home for winter break, he will be driving himself home and then back up to school in January. I feel good about it because he will take the route we have now driven several times (and it is far away from Atlanta - I despise driving anywhere near Atlanta.) I have told him to promise me that he will get some sleep before he gets on the road. He will drive home, and I will pray he arrives home safe. What else can I do?

As far as flying alone, it just isn’t as difficult as it seems, and one stop is entirely doable - and if it isn’t, then it needs to be. I admit that I no longer enjoy the flying experience thanks to all of the security measures. My only concern with sending my daughter on a flight alone these days would be any creepy TSA officers. But I’ve already told what to do if she were given an inappropriate pat-down. Don’t send your daughter off to college, or on to an airplane, without some street smarts.

If you want to make the experience easier, first show confidence in your daughter that she can do this. You may not like connecting flights, but that’s you, not her, necessarily. Then give her good advice like packing as light as possible. I have bought the Early Boarding for Southwest for my son - just to make his experience less like a cattle roundup, and it’s worth the $12 for him to get an earlier opportunity to pick his seat.

I know it is hard, but what will be harder will be to see your adult daughter, as a college graduate, unable to get herself on a plane and to her destination. She can do this, and she deserves a chance to try and to succeed. Best wishes during this exciting time.

17

While a lot of people think that flying is stressful and complicated, it’s really easy once one calms down and realize that it’s not that much more difficult than taking the city bus.

Coming from Seattle, flying was the only feasible option to/from Tuscaloosa. It wasn’t difficult at all; leave home at 8PM, take an 11PM flight to Dallas or Atlanta, have a 2 hour connection, land in Birmingham around 9AM and be in my dorm room by 11AM. I flew often enough to earn elite status and was thus upgraded to first class around half of the time. Flying first class made it even easier; it was like spending the evening in a Lay-Z-Boy with complementary drinks and snacks.

I’ve seen way too many people book really inconvenient flights in order to save a few dollars and end up spending more than they “saved” by needing to take more expensive shuttles, spend more time waiting in the airport, etc. Even now, I’ll pay the $50-75 to fly into Birmingham, often connecting in Atlanta, than fly into Nashville or Atlanta and then drive 3+ hours to Tuscaloosa. Birmingham is such a small airport that one can get off the plane, use the restroom, rent a car, and be on the road in less than 20 minutes.

18

Seriously… my kids have been travelling internationally on their own since age 15 to get to their US boarding school-- a trip that involves 3 flight segments, changing planes in a third country, a dozen time zones, foreign currency, int’l cellphone roaming, and a 90 minute land-transfer that includes rail plus taxi.

Based on my two data points involving 15 year olds, I’m confident that if a student can read well enough to get into college, then the student can read well enough to find the connecting gate in a domestic airport.

19

Shuttles:

Yes, for major breaks, UA does have shuttles scheduled for their peak times. If you fly in/out during this time at Birmingham, you will see lots of kids sitting around waiting on shuttles. Mine has not taken the shuttles. A parent did organize a shuttle on a bus from Tuscaloosa to Atlanta this year for Thanksgiving.

Private Rides:

There are several companies in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham that offer this service. Some charge a flat fee and it can be split between how many ever riders share the ride. We have used this route several times. Mainly when my DD is leaving her car on campus for a longer break. If it is a short break like Fall Break, she will drive to the airport.

Driving to/from Birmingham Airport:

Mine does this for short trips. She has flown home, flown to away football games, flown to see the boyfriend in another state, etc. These short trips she parks at the airport. You can reserve parking ahead of time for the airport parking. Also, there are a few hotels near the airport that offer long term parking with a shuttle that runs to/from the airport.

Parking for breaks on campus:
UA does help in this. For one break they told us to park her car at the Ferg Parking Deck. For winter break one year they told us to have her park her car at the Transportation Hub on campus in their parking deck for free. The chauffered ride I had hired picked her up there to take her to the airport.

Flying:
My kids are pros at flying. However, it really is easy to manuever and they pick it all up easy even with connections. Mine has been stuck in airports due to bad weather and UA parents have been around to help. Connecting fights really is not hard and they can always ask the flight attendant while in flight how to get from the incoming gate to their outgoing gate for their connecting flight. Same for any of the other airline and airport workers. Most airports now have info desks and ambassadors that are there to help. She just needs to ask one of them. You can also pull up on your phone the airport map to show the terminal(s) and gate layouts. I HIGHLY recommend making her sign up for the text notifications from the airline for all flights. Do this with her for your upcoming trip. The airlines all have apps that you can access to do such and check flight status. Getting the text notifications is very important!!! They will text any delays, gate changes, etc.

Driving to/from home:
A lot of kids do drive home for long breaks. We are 9 hours away and mine drove home for winter break this past year. She flew home the year before for winter break. There are UA parents all over! And, they are all there to help. Get on The University of Alabama Parent Group Facebook page. I remember last year there were 2 students driving up to the NE and a bad storm came thru and they were stranded at some gas station in Kentucky. A UA parent PM’d the mom that posted about her son being stranded with the bad weather. Soon another UA parent was on the way to go pick them up that lived a few miles away from where they were. It is not uncommon for UA parents and families on their trips to/from Tuscaloosa to meet up in various places Another UA parent was stranded in Denver at the airport with a flight delayed till the next day. A fellow UA parent went and picked them up, went out to dinner and hosted them for the night. When mine has driven home lately, it ends up being a carvan of UA kids coming home to the Dallas area all following each other.

It really is a great family and we all help each other out.

As for the cost of flying, sadly, that $300ish rate is pretty common for us, even on Southwest. We can not fly anywhere from Dallas to outside of the state of Texas for less than $300 nowadays. I look at it as saving wear and tear on the car, D being stranded on the road with car trouble, etc. Last flight to Birmingham we booked was around $380 and that was on Southwest with an advance purchase.

Hope this helps

20

Thanks to everyone for providing info on travel options, shuttles and the facebook group. I do think that if she goes to UA she will just have to get used to making connections. As others have noted, once you do it a couple times you know how and it becomes manageable. I was just trying to save her the trouble if possible. Once you introduce a connection, you introduce another thing that can go wrong, especially when it gets to winter and delays due to snow storms enter into the picture.

Maybe we had less options for our upcoming trip than are usually available because we decided to visit on fairly short notice and are booking less than a month out. We did not find many good options for connections for our dates. They were either very expensive or involved long layovers. Most were 6-7 hours total travel time which is why it made sense to just fly to Nashville for many $ less and drive. I even looked at doing the driving on the front end by driving to NY and flying direct to Birmingham from there - that option was over $700 pp. I do think that we will need to book her trip home at Christmas as soon as we know what the dates are to avoid this.

Finally, I think that those that claim that connections are easy and should be easily navigable by anyone going to college are being a bit cavalier. I know many adults, myself included, that will never book connections unless there is no choice. I used to travel a lot for work and I found myself running through airports many times trying to make a connection because the initial flight was significantly delayed. I have been stranded overnight because I missed my connection and the first flight with an available seat was the next day. As I was an adult I was able to get a hotel room, but an 18 year old cannot do that since most hotels will not allow someone that young to book a room. I do have Mom nightmares of my daughter stranded overnight in an airport. I’m just trying to do what I can to avoid this scenario.