<p>I also have had concerns about my D accepting rides from people she doesn’t know (even though they go to her school and are to date been fine) and whose driving ability and car maintenance we have no information about. So far, she’s been lucky, but today’s world really isn’t the place it used to be in the days when as a college kid I could safely accept a ride to the gas station from the first person who came along to my broken down car. I’d much rather drive a few extra hours and know my kid is safe with me. Plus there are those great car conversations.</p>
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I think crime rates are actually much lower now then they were 20-30 years ago, what’s different is that instant 24x7 media coverage and the internet have created a perception that things are much more dangerous.</p>
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<p>Oh my goodness, let me take you on a driving trip through the majority of the US… 20 miles may be inconvenient to you, but it’s hardly far for most of us. We’ll see lots of beautiful scenery - rivers and waterfalls and high mountain passes and rolling open plains. </p>
<p>If you have to either fly on twin engine planes or drive more than 4 hours on a broad, non-trafficed interstate freeway <em>after</em> you have landed at the nearest large airport, that’s far from home.</p>
<p>^^another East End LIer here. Dragonmom, have you ever been out to the Eastern End of LI? It’s a 2 hour drive to the airport (that is, on a good day on the LIE). I don’t know where you pulled the idea of 20 miles as an inconvenience. Just driving to the nearest mall from Eastern LI is an hour drive. </p>
<p>East End LI is 2 hours east of NYC (and JFK Airport, and Laguardia Airport), not 20 miles. That 2 hr. drive can easily turn into a 3-4 hr. drive during peak times on the LIE.</p>
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There are places in the western states where it’s a two hour drive to the grocery store.</p>
<p>Wow! thanks for all the replies, definitely interesting to see that most got rides from friends, and not from riding public buses or Amtrak and/or commuter trains…A lot of you mentioned “rideshare boards”…where would one usually find such a board on campus? just curious…</p>
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<p>A few of of the schools I’m looking at are truly out in the boonies, like Sewanee, others simply are just far from the airport and taking a cab would get pricey, for example, K-State…while some are near airports that are expensive to fly to (i.e. Furman) so I may want to fly into a bigger airport to save money…</p>
<p>I used the ride board at centrally isolated central NY/Siberia U years ago, and actually made some friends through it. It was important to meet the person before you took the ride, and kind of check out that he or she was who they were supposed to be. One friend later worked at the same firm that I did, and even advised me some on buying an apartment in NYC.</p>
<p>When I went to grad school in Atlanta, a number of people had gone to University of the South. How far is it from a regional airport? People used to drive a couple of hours to Tennessee from Atlanta all the time.</p>
<p>Years ago, you could take “hopscotch” flights all over the south - from Atl to Birmingham to Miss. to N. Orleans, and they were not so expensive. I remember talking to a student who was flying on to Furman on one of these flights. I would never want to do it now, but when I was a student, I had time, and it was not so bad. </p>
<p>The debate that we always have in our home is for trips that could take 8 hours by car. I don’t want to fly because between arriving early at the airport and security screening, and travel from the small airport to wherever I need to go, it takes almost as long. Throw in a delay, and it takes longer.</p>
<p>OP, if you are in California, you could probably go to Nashville or ATl and then get to Tenn. Check out airport shuttles to various destinations from these airports.</p>
<p>Go Greyhound!</p>
<p>My town is 90 miles from an airport, but there’s a greyhound bus that makes the trip and, because there’s nothing between here and there, it’s not much longer than driving yourself. Most kids, however, carpool. When one is in the middle of nowhere, lots of kids are heading for the airport on break.</p>
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Ours was in the student union, these days it’s probably done on-line.</p>
<p>^Most likely on-line. Real boards are so last century! ;)</p>
<p>Once I got a ride home (10 hour car ride) from a nice guy who had a 20 year old Fairlane station wagon that was more rust than car. It ran fine (I guess…got us there) but when my father saw what I came in he was sort of worried that we wouldn’t make it back. :D</p>
<p>My S goes to school truly in the boonies. Miles from anywhere, has a regional airport, but to fly to our town it would take two transfers. He has never had a problem finding a ride home. Kids know it’s far away from anywhere and are more than willing to share rides. Has an active ride share board on line.</p>
<p>D goes to school in a city in the busy Northeast. Has a terrible time even getting a ride to the airport. Ride share, no one has heard of it, she wouldn’t dream of trying.</p>
<p>Is it the kid or the university. I don’t know.</p>
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<p>“Middle of nowhere” I think was intended to relate to transportation logistics, not population. We used to live about an hour away from Ithaca and visited it often - lovely town! But we never seriously considered it the college hunt, and one of the reasons was remoteness from airports. Ditto for my own beloved school in Potsdam, which is truly in the middle of nowhere in all senses of the word. </p>
<p>My son will fly 2000 miles to his Boston college, but we like the idea that he can take a direct flight to Logan and then hop on The T to get to campus. Easy logistics was not a firm requirement, but it definitely is a “pro” when you doing the pros/cons list.</p>
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<p>This would never be acceptable to my D or to me.</p>
<p>Thanks again for all the awesome responses. As for the rideshare board, totally should have known its all online now, d’oh! 
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<p>And I have to agree with those that said “middle of nowhere” as in hard to get to places…</p>
<p>For those that have kids who fly in and out by themselves…do you select the closest airport or the cheaper one (or maybe one with more flight options)? at that point, I would assume they either get a cab or have a friend pick them up?</p>
<p>Check to see if the school runs shuttles to the airport; often schools in remote areas will do this at peak travel times. Otherwise, see if there’s is some sort of transport service in town; cabs can be frighteningly expensive (although as the price of gas went up, airport van service prices skyrocketed up several years ago too).</p>
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<p>My daughter takes the chartered bus from campus to Penn Station. Very easy and about $30 or so. I can see that it’s more of a straight line trip for your son to drive and use the ferry though.</p>
<p>Sigh… as the mom who bought her son a car I get tired of all the “ride moochers” and he’s still in high school. I want my son to have his car at college, but I didn’t pay all that money so he could taxi other kids around.</p>
<p>If you ARE doing the “just go beg for a ride” parenting you could at least throw out some cash and have the kid buy a nice meal for his driver.</p>
<p>"… or the cheaper one (or maybe one with more flight options)? "</p>
<p>I think often these will be one and the same. And the most usable, during peak travel times anyway.</p>
<p>"…one of the reasons was remoteness from airports. "</p>
<p>With an airport in town, and another an hour away, I’m guessing what you really mean is that you can’t get reasonable flights to there from your particular area, or you don’t want to pay an expensive taxi ride if S can’t find car share from Syracuse. Completely understandable, when we lived in the midwest and were looking at colleges there were lots of places in the Northeast which were simply too much if a pain to get to. But it depends on where you live. Some far-away places other than yours may happen to have better flight connections to a particular city, for seemingly no particular good reason. Just based on what airlines happen to fly there, probably.</p>
<p>When D1 was applying to schools we lived in the lower midwest, there were indeed some northeast schools she did not visit or strongly consider because of such transportation logistics.</p>
<p>^^Take Cincinnati, for example. Our closest airport is the most expensive. An hour or a 1 1/2 hour away by car are several airports with better deals. But you need a car to get to and from them. The logistics for a college student are daunting.</p>
<p>The logistics certainly can be daunting, but in practice it might not necessarily always be a big deal. eg if the customary practice at the college is for students to team up to share airport transportation. Or if there’s a bus, etc. It just depends. </p>
<p>If it has to cost $100 to get from the airport- well guess what, I live in the suburbs of NYC, and it would cost us close to that much to get a car service to the airport too ! And take just about as much time also, if traffic is bad which is not terribly unusual here.</p>