VA to NYC-train or drive?
 

My daughter and I are going to NYC in a few days (Wed thru Sat). I was going to take the train, but driving is cheaper, unless parking is too expensive. We are staying near the Empire SB and, if i drive, we'll just drive in and park at the hotel, taking cabs and walking for our sight seeing. If not, we'll take the train to Penn station. I'm a little skiddish about driving into the city, so I'm having a hard time deciding. Any suggestions?

I would take the train.If you are staying in the city, you will not need the car.While you may be "skittish" about driving, if the weather is bad, you may really be "skiddish" on wet roads:D

I would definitely take the train -- we do it at least once a year, live in Northern Va. We take metro to Union Station. It's so simple and stress-free...since you won't (can't) really use your car in Manhattan, why go through the trouble? <BR><BR>Since you're traveling on a Wednesday, you can probably economize on Amtrak with unreserved coach seats to NYC for sure, and probably take a shot at unreserved on the way home on a Saturday.

Thanks for the speedy replies. I guess I will take the Amtrak. Although, FYI, there were no unreserved seats for Wednesday that I could find on their website. Also, thanks for correcting my misuse of "skiddish". I'm usually the one correcting other people's English.

There are some parking lots on the far west side where the car can be parked for around $15 a day. Taxi to hotel from where you could park to near the ESB would be less than $10 each way. You can equate cost of car versus train after factoring in cost of gas and tolls. Tolls are going to be at least $15 each way.

The website doesn't specify "unreserved" -- at first. It just says "coach" I believe. If you go to the column on the far right where you click the little icons like "B," for accommodations I believe, another screen comes up and that's where you can see that you've chosen an unreserved seat. To my recollection of the website, "coach" is unreserved and "business" is a reserved seat.

Joolz: I live in N.VA and my sister just trained down with her kids from CT last week. She said Amtrak was offering a buy one-get one free deal so the tickets were quite reasonable. I don't know if that offer is still valid. The train was relaxing she said and (as an ex-NY) I can tell you, there's absolutely no need for a car in NYC - in fact, it makes things more difficult. Also, unless I'm not understanding correctly, there are reserved and unreserved trains. We asked about that at Union Station when we were picking her up and they said on a reserve train they only sell exactly as many tickets as they have seats, as opposed to unreserved where they just issue tickets like on the metro! If you're taking the train I'm thinking of on Wednesday morning about 11:00, it starts either in Richmond or DC and therefore is not crowded at Union Station. You should have no problem getting the seat of your choice! Good luck!