Explain Little Airplanes To Me Please
The idea of using little airplanes for recreational travel is a complete mystery to me. Spend $50K and up (often WAY up) for a traveling airplane, only to be totally subservient to the whims of the weather and the FAA bureaucracy. You have to leave half of your stuff (and sometimes, your family) at home due to weight and balance limitations, you often have to wrestle with finding ground transportation just to get a decent lunch, not to mention having to wrangle a courtesy car, rental car, or taxi to haul people, luggage, dogs, and whatever else you bring along to hotels every night, then reverse that procedure every morning. Plus paying who-knows-how-much for parking/landing/ramp/whatever other fees the airport folks want to make up.
Plus, no matter how interesting something along the route looks, you may get a view of it from the air, but you're not stopping to take the tour unless there happens to be an airport nearby and you're willing to endure whatever ground transportation hassles are required to actually get there.
OR...drive a $20K and up (often way up) RV rig (my preference is a motorhome towing a dinghy that can be attached or detached in less than two minutes), stay wherever you want, from a Walmart lot to a friend's driveway to the finest RV resort to a waterfront spot fifty feet from the Pacific (or from the river where the freighters are maneuvering into the Soo Locks). Take the dogs, the grandkids, friends, relatives, and virtually everything else you want or need, in relatively roomy splendor that includes most of the amenities of your stick house, including satellite TV and high-speed internet.
Weather is a non-factor, there's no slogging your luggage to and from hotels, you can eat wherever you want, from a quick sandwich or a gourmet meal in the motorhome, to food trucks, cafes, or the finest restaurants; sure beats making a meal out of whatever you find in the vending machines at the airport. And you can visit any attractions or interesting sights you see or hear about along the way, without worrying about whether there's an airport nearby, or transport to the attraction from the airport available after you get there, or a place to safely leave the dogs or the grandkids who are along for the trip but aren't really good candidates to go along when you decide to take the tour (and sample the wares) found along Kentucky's Whiskey Trail.
To me, it's a very simple decision, and I've owned airplanes (up through a Bonanza) and motorhomes (up to a 300k diesel pusher): if you have more money than time, an airplane (whether GA or airliner) is a great way to make the most of both. But once you reach the point in life where time is in abundance (and money may or may not be), the flexibility of wandering the country in a rolling home-away-from-home, is hands-down a better way to spend both.
Plus, by that point, you probably know lots of folks, all over the country, with airplanes. The airports where those airplanes can be found become new motorhome destinations, where you get to do some of the cheapest and most enjoyable flying of all: OPA, (aka, Other People's Airplanes). Fun flying doesn't get any cheaper than that, and I've flown OPA in everything from ultralights to B-25's, without any of the hassles or expenses of airplane ownership. After the flight, walk a few feet to your "home", offer the airplane owner a cocktail or dinner (I've found that, like me when I owned an airplane, most won't accept gas money). Then, the next day, either move on, or not-- and all without worrying about what trials and tribulations are being predicted on the Weather Channel.
When my wife and I both worked for a living, the airport house and the Bonanza in the backyard hangar were great, and there was no better way to turn our disposable income into short, but quality, time at distant destinations. Now, though, without time limits? I still fly for fun locally-- but if travel is the plan? It's not even close, the motorhome is a far better way to go.
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