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By joel, December 18, 2009 7:43 am

I’m been thinking of taking a trip to Montreal in June. The Canadian F1 Grand Prix is back this year, in Montreal. It’s the only F1 event in North America and it’s an awesome course, so I figure this is a good excuse to see an interesting city as well.

The big question then presents itself: Should I drive to Montreal and back in my own car, or should I fly to Montreal and then rent a car for the few days I’m there. Wanting a car to drive around in while in Montreal is not a question. I definitely want a car while I’m there. It would definitely be cheaper to drive there and back (diesel is awesome like that) than to fly round-trip, however I would obviously save time, save paid-time-off hours from work, and save the wear-and-tear on my car.

However, I have been wanting to make a cross-country road trip since I got this car, and this would be a great opportunity to do so. That said, I’ve already seen a majority of the country along the preferred route (mostly I-90, before turning north). I could drive straight up into Canada and then head east from there, but this path would add time, miles, and cost to the overall trip very quickly.

Another option is to rent a car, one-way, to drive to Montreal, and then fly on-way back home. To me this seems the most practical option, but it is also the most expensive by far. All of the car rental quotes I have seen for such a plan would be astronomically high, and the single plane ticket would be higher than two for the round-trip as well. With these things in mind I have given up on this possibility.

I think I would prefer driving over and back if possible. The biggest negatives are the wear on the car and the extra time away from work. I can try to make the drives as quickly as possible, but that sort of defeats the purpose of a cross-country road trip for me. So, in the end, if I do decide to drive both ways I will need to take off around 5 – 7 days of work, similar to the time I used while in Germany this year. That is nearly half of my available time off for the whole year, so I will need to consider this choice carefully.

The least fun option, but still the cheapest, is simply to fly both to and from Montreal. I would only need a few days off from work, I would avoid putting the six or seven thousand extra miles on my car, and I could completely avoid the monotony that is driving through parts of Montana and the Dakotas.

The more I think about this the more I move toward the ’safe’ choice of simply flying both ways. It isn’t too much more expensive than driving and it avoids a lot of other ‘issues’ involved in driving across the United States.

I would certainly still thoroughly enjoy my time in Montreal, and I might even be able to squeeze some sight-seeing in when not enjoying the grand prix weekend events. Then the only concern is the large expense required to properly enjoy one’s first F1 Grand Prix weekend.

You can count on updates as June grows closer.