This is a question for acceptees, current students, alum and parents, or just basically anyone/knows someone that commutes to Florida State from the North- what is the best and cheapest way to get to FSU? This could be the deciding factor on whether I go there, and I really would love to.
I am from NYC Metro, and when I visited FSU in August wr found a cheap flight to Jax and then drove to Tally. However, are there cheap buses for students to and from Jax? Is there any other way to get to FSU from a major Northern city/state? Are they going to bring back Amtrak? Any info is much appreciated!
I’m looking at tickets from the Philly area and the connecting flights into Tallahassee are $450-$600 depending on time of year. I figure if we make 4 round trips a year (Start to Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving to Christmas, New Years to Spring Break, Spring Break to summer) that is about $2,400 a year on travel. Plus the cost of a taxi to the airport in Tally. Tried Panama City airport too but from Philly it’s not cheaper plus still need to get to Tallahassee somehow.
check out the red coach bus. it starts in Tally and hits all the major cities in Florida. http://www.redcoachusa.com/stops/tallahassee My girls have never used it but I think it runs every weekend and Holidays. I am not sure where it stops in Jax but I think you would still have an issue getting to the airport. There are also several facebook carpool groups that you might want to look at. https://www.facebook.com/groups/152221494899054/ Good luck baby Noles!
Yeah, flying out of Tallahassee can be a nightmare price-wise. And unfortunately, the larger airports around (Atlanta, Jacksonville, Tampa) are still several hours away, so unless you have a really good friend that’ll be willing to correlate their schedules it can be difficult at best to make one of those options work.
Your best bet would be to try and just price-watch flights that you know you’ll be booking and booking them when they’re cheap. Of course, the drawback is that you can book the flight and it could drop even cheaper.
Aside from that, unfortunately, there aren’t many good options. The one thing about flying into or out of a different airport is that you’re dependent upon traffic or whatnot on that part of the trek to not be so bad that you miss the flight or something. Flying out of Tallahassee and into a different airport and then trekking back to Tallahassee will wear on most people enough to where you just end up deciding to make the trek from Tallahassee.
The bottomline is that you need to make peace with TLH airport. It is more expensive to be sure, but the bus to and from Jacksonville is nearly three hours, and just adds a logistical step in the process. The TLH flights are about $200 more total than JAX or MCO (Orlando). I use AMEX points to offset some of the cost, but by far this is the easiest solution, and cab fare to that airport is nominal from campus.
I wouldn’t reccommend going back home for Thanksgiving, which should save some money. I didn’t think it was worth it, and I live in Florida. Though I’m not much of a sentimental person so I wasn’t homesick.
GMG http://gmgtrans.com has cheap bus tickets to Tallahassee from Orlando and Miami, although they don’t stop at the airport. If you go on an off-day and book far in advance, it looks like you can take Jet Blue from Syracuse to Orlando and Silver Airways from Orlando to Tallahassee for about $300.