You Can't Get To DAMOP From Here

If anybody else from Union is going, consider carpooling. I don't see a way to avoid the ~8 hours door-to-door time, but at least you wouldn't have to do all of the driving. And if you opt to drive from Dulles, you would be sharing the cost of the rental car.

These days, many but not all of the sorts of routes you would be flying if you decide to go into Charlottesville are on regional jets rather than turboprops. There are two families: the Canadair jets (which are not much better than a turboprop in terms of personal space) and the Embraer jets (which would be an improvement). Most booking sites will tell you what kind of aircraft are scheduled for which flights.

And if you do get stuck on a Beechcraft 1900 or a Dash-8 Q200 (19 and 37 seats respectively; these are two of the most common turboprop types), try to get the center seat in the back row. These seats have nothing but aisle in front of them, so you could stretch out your legs once your fellow passengers have boarded. You will have to leave your carry-on planeside when boarding and pick it up planeside at your destination, but this is something you would probably have to do anyway.

I've done a lot of flying on both turboprops and regional jets. Other than lack of personal space--not that you'd get that much more on a 737 or Airbus--they aren't so bad. But it may be a matter of getting used to them (much of my travel has been on routes where there aren't other viable options).

Amtrak's a 2-hr ride from DC to Charlottesville.

You should offer a former student the chance to come with you. Or even a couple former students. And all of you could carpool down, listening to John Denver, and time will fly during the 8-hour drive.

The problem with Amtrak is not the Washington to C'ville piece. It's the return trip. The train starts out in New Orleans and can get badly delayed crossing the South.

It's worth pointing out that Dulles to C'ville is on the order of a two hour drive and Rt 29 can get badly congested from Ruckersville on. If you drive from Schenectady, you could take 88 to 81 to 64 which is a bit longer in miles but no tolls and little congestion.

It's not necessarily a waste to have a car in C'ville. It depends on where you're staying. The last conference there I went to we stayed at the Residence Inn, which is a long walk from the University. The conference is after the end of the semester, so there should be parking available in the garage. They'll charge you for it, though.

If I were you, I'd drive the whole way.

You might try connections to Richmond VA, the drive up I64 might be less unpleasant than coming from DC. Otherwise ditto Amtrak.

I live in Charlottesville and will confirm that almost all the planes in and out are turboprops. In addition, flights are regularly cancelled. The last time my fiance flew out he got driven from Charlottesville to Dulles when his flight was cancelled. The return trip was delayed 14 hours due to snow.

I would drive or fly to either Richmond or Dulles. Richmond is a smaller and nicer airport than Dulles. It also has free wireless internet. The advantage of driving (as jim) mentioned is that the hotels next to the university aren't generally very good, so you don't have to worry as much about geography or walkability. (Don't stay at the Best Western Cavalier Inn. It is horribly noisy.)

Re: Angel's comment.

The drive from Richmond to Charlottesville is dead simple and the traffic isn't bad. Just take I-295 around the city and link up to I-64.

As a UVa grad and C'ville afficionado, I second the Richmond suggestion if there's a decent flight option. Just don't speed over 75 on I-64: Goochland County, site of my first US speeding ticket, has (or at least had) their traffic court ringed by semiauto-armed troopers, and was *expensive*!

Delta flies in on a little regional jet. It is expensive if you buy normally, but I used to get fantastic deals with priceline. If you specify that you won't take a prop, you are guaranteed to be on Delta, so the flight times are easy to figure out. When flying from Chicago it was great because I could add airports one at a time while keeping that option set and get 3 chances to guess the minimum rate they would accept. Haven't used priceline in a while, so I don't know if that still works, and it is obviously not as useful from where you are.

You're a physicist. Can't you use some sort of quantum teleportation?

You should be able to get a flight into RIC I'd think Chad, and then it's a little over an hour from Richmond to Charlottesville. Flying into IAD and driving down US 29 S is a 2.5 - 3 hour trip depending on traffic (taking I95 S to I64 W from DC might be slightly less time, if traffic doesn't completely suck getting to south of Fredericksburg, and good luck with that, but it's a longer drive either way). Driving down 29 is gorgeous too. Once you get south of Gainesville, it's all farm and horse country along the eastern foothills of the Appalachians.

The reason to prefer DC over Richmond is that I can get a direct flight from Albany to DC, but there are no non-stop flights to Richmond. Which means that any savings in drive time would be more than given back in sitting-in-airports time. And that assumes that there aren't any little glitches in the air traffic control system to delay or cancel one of the legs of the flight.

I hate sitting in traffic, but I'd rather sit in traffic than sit in an airport.

I also like the Rt. 29 drive from Dulles, and I've never encountered serious traffic heading West from Dulles (I've driven it maybe 200 times; when I started grad school, Jenny still lived in Baltimore..)

I personally like the drive from Richmond to C'ville, and traffic is usually pretty nice once you pass the worst of Richmond's West End sprawl (biased here, am a Southside native). Sure you could just take 295 around the city, but where's the fun in that? I think you could schedule a tight connection in between Albany and Richmond.

Come to think of it, I know some people driving from Williamsburg to DAMOP, and the Richmond airport is on the way...

I think you could schedule a tight connection in between Albany and Richmond.

Stipulated that there is a greater selection of flights into Richmond, but I'm with Chad on this one. Anybody coming from an airport with nonstop flights to RIC but not Charlottesville should consider flying to RIC, but for Chad it's probably not worth the trouble.

I'm not going to DAMOP (not my field), but I face this problem regularly. From my location (SE New Hampshire) I typically have two choices when I fly anywhere: fly from Manchester, a convenient airport similar in size to Albany, or drive/shuttle to Boston and fly out of Logan. Years of experience have taught me that there is one and only one reason to consider a domestic departure from BOS: availability of nonstop flights. If I have to connect anyway, MHT is a lot less hassle. And if by chance I'm going somewhere that has nonstop service from MHT, it's a no-brainer.

The danger of having a connection is the possibility of missing said connection. I would rather have 60-90 minutes on the connection than 40 minutes simply because that gives me some leeway in case the first flight has minor delays. Most likely Chad's flight from Albany to Major Airline Hub would be on a regional jet operated by Mumble Express--if the weather is bad at Major Airline Hub, these are the flights most likely to get delayed or cancelled. No big deal if his ALB-IAD nonstop is delayed; he just picks up his rental car a little later. But if the delay out of ALB causes him to miss the connection in Major Airline Hub, he would have to find another flight to his destination, which (especially these days with airlines cutting so many flights) might not be available until the next day or even later. Plus there is the risk that the connecting flight is cancelled out from under him. I've had four missed connections and four cancelled connecting flights in my career (five different airlines have been involved). Four of these incidents led to an overnight stay in a Major Airline Hub, and in a fifth case I got the last seat on the last flight of the day while colleagues booked on the same flights had to stay overnight.

If you do fly into Dulles (or anywhere), use Priceline for the car rental. You will probably be able to get a mid-sized car with unlimited mileage for well under $15/day, if my recent experiences are any guide. Doesn't help you with the parking, of course, but at least the car itself is cheap.

But I would recommend driving all the way. That way, at least you're in your own (presumably comfortable) car. My husband is also among the vertically gifted, so I know how important it is to be in the right vehicle.

Aw, why you gotta crap on my little airport?

I actually used c-ville's airport extensively to do the interviewing thing. There are directs from C-ville to La Guardia, Philly, DC and Charlotte. Yes the planes are small, and being over 6 feet it's a cramped fit. But I love our airport because flying out is so freaking easy. No security lines, no check-in lines - it's so small it's the most convenient airport I know of.

If you fly to DC I'd recommend National over Dulles. Dulles often gets slammed and the lines become ridiculous. I know of people that arrived 3 hours before their flights and still missed it due to security lines (albeit during the holidays). National is a much more convenient airport to fly in and out of.

When you come to town come to 12th Street Taphouse for a beer. I might be gone already (that's the week after graduation), but it's the best beer in town.

Unless you can get a flight on an airline that explicitly states that they fly A320s or 737s in RIC, fly into IAD. Otherwise you will likely be stuck on an RJ either way.
It sounds like you want to fly into IAD and rent a car.

I flew into CHO for my brother's wedding in 2007 on an EMB-120 and it didn't suck any more or less than any other regional flight. They even have a proper baggage claim inside a permanent building, which is more than can be said for IYK(Inyokern, my previous prop experience) which consists of a shed and a table screwed into the ground.