Is it worth driving to another airport?
Pick your home airport and where in Europe you are going. Other US gateways observed on the same Eastern day, their recorded fare gaps, the miles between the airports, and a verdict with its thresholds printed, from 1,037 fares we priced ourselves.
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Tampa to London, $786 from home
Price it from Orlando: $381 less, 80 miles away
$405 from Orlando against $786 from Tampa, on the same day’s collection. Straight-line miles; the road is longer, and the saving is per person.
Every other gateway, biggest saving first
| Gateway | Fare | Saving | Miles from TPA | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orlando MCO | $405 | $381 | 80 | worth the drive |
| New York JFK | $526 | $260 | 1,010 | worth a positioning flight |
| Boston BOS | $574 | $212 | 1,190 | worth a positioning flight |
| Miami MIA | $584 | $202 | 200 | worth the drive |
| Los Angeles LAX | $610 | $176 | 2,150 | not worth it |
| Washington DC IAD | $620 | $166 | 810 | not worth it |
| Seattle SEA | $646 | $140 | 2,520 | not worth it |
| Chicago ORD | $650 | $136 | 1,010 | not worth it |
| Atlanta ATL | $674 | $112 | 410 | not worth it |
| San Francisco SFO | $674 | $112 | 2,390 | not worth it |
| Denver DEN | $699 | $87 | 1,510 | not worth it |
| Minneapolis MSP | $735 | $51 | 1,310 | not worth it |
| Las Vegas LAS | $760 | $26 | 1,980 | not worth it |
| Philadelphia PHL | $782 | $4 | 920 | not worth it |
| Portland PDX | $793 | $7 more | 2,490 | not worth it |
| Nashville BNA | $801 | $15 more | 610 | not worth it |
| Raleigh RDU | $833 | $47 more | 590 | not worth it |
| San Diego SAN | $842 | $56 more | 2,080 | not worth it |
| Charlotte CLT | $860 | $74 more | 510 | not worth it |
| Houston IAH | $873 | $87 more | 790 | not worth it |
| Austin AUS | $879 | $93 more | 930 | not worth it |
| Detroit DTW | $880 | $94 more | 980 | not worth it |
| Salt Lake City SLC | $880 | $94 more | 1,890 | not worth it |
| Phoenix PHX | $884 | $98 more | 1,790 | not worth it |
| Dallas DFW | $957 | $171 more | 930 | not worth it |
Worth the drive: at least $100 saved within 300 straight-line miles. Worth a positioning flight: at least $200 beyond that, because a second ticket carries its own misconnect risk. Only gateways with matching actual observation days are compared. Fares are recorded one-week round-trip floors; price both airports for your own dates before treating a gap as a saving.
Why the airport matters more than the day you book
Every departure-city guide on this site ends up making the same point from a different angle: where you leave from changes what Europe costs by more than any booking trick does. Salt Lake City pays a $1196 median because no European airline sells it in our grid. Tampa pays $381 more than Orlando for London with the two airports an hour and a half apart. Nashville is third in the country for Copenhagen and mediocre for everything else. None of that is visible from inside one airport’s search results.
The grid was collected over the disclosed collection interval with gateway observation days recorded; this tool compares only gateways observed on the same day, and this tool is the grid read sideways: instead of one gateway’s fares to every city, every gateway’s fare to your city.
How to read the verdicts
Worth the drive means at least $100 saved per person within 300 straight-line miles. For a couple that is $200 against a tank of gas and a week of parking, which usually still pays. Worth a positioning flight means at least $200 saved from a gateway too far to drive; price the connecting flight on a separate ticket, leave a real buffer, and remember that a missed connection on two tickets is your problem, not the airline’s. Not worth it is the verdict most of the time, and it is a useful one: it means your airport is a fair place to start.
What it cannot tell you
The miles are straight-line, not road, and the tool does not price gas, parking, tolls or your time. The fares are floors across the August 30, 2026 – February 28, 2027 departure window, from the disclosed collection interval, so the gaps are real but the dollar figures are not quotes. And the grid prices economy; the business picture by gateway is on business class by departure city. The gateway rankings the tool draws on are on the cheap flights hub, and the whole grid is downloadable on the open data page.
The cheaper gateway is only useful if you hear about its fares. Alerts set for two airports rather than one are the practical version of this tool.
Common questions
- Is it cheaper to fly to Europe from a different airport?
- The gap depends on the destination, dates and observation day. This tool compares only gateways whose fares were observed on the same Eastern day. A different-day quote cannot establish a simultaneous saving; price both airports again before buying.
- Why is the threshold $100 within 300 miles?
- Because below that the drive costs what it saves: fuel, parking at a bigger airport for a week, and the hours, all per trip rather than per person. Beyond 300 miles a drive stops being realistic for most people and a positioning flight needs $200 to survive its own ticket and the risk of a misconnect on two separate bookings. Both thresholds are printed beside the results, so you can apply your own.
- Are the miles driving distance?
- No. They are straight-line miles between the airports, rounded to the nearest ten, because driving distance and time depend on the route and the hour and we do not estimate what we have not measured. The road is always longer, typically by a fifth or more. Treat the miles as a way to sort the alternatives, then check the drive yourself.
- Why does the saving change when I change the destination?
- Because gateways are not uniformly cheap or dear. New York is the cheapest gateway in the country for Reykjavik, Paris and Rome and loses to Boston on Dublin; Portland beats New York to Oslo and loses badly to it on Rome. A gateway's advantage is a fact about a city pair, which is why this tool asks for the destination before it says anything.
- Are these fares I can book?
- No. Each is the cheapest one-week round trip recorded for departures in the August 30, 2026 – February 28, 2027 window. Both reads of each pair and the complete gateway cohort were taken on one Eastern day. This tool only subtracts fares from gateways with matching observation days, and these floors are not bookable quotes.
Written by
Jon Miksis
Jon Miksis has run travel businesses since 2017 and spends 3–6 months a year traveling, two to three of them in Europe. He has taken 250+ flights and booked every one himself, and regularly flies Boston to Europe for under $300 round trip. Every “Flown” review is from his own seat.
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