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I'm looking at going to a Blood Bowl tournament in June, but from where I'm currently at, it'd be nearly a 4 hour drive one way for a single day event (although I can cut an hour off the drive time if I go to a friend's place overnight).

What are your thoughts on travelling to tournaments, events and conventions? Does your tolerance for driving increase if you're spending more than a single day gaming? And what's your max time you'll spend behind the wheel to get some gaming in?

Single day, definitely no more than 2 hours one way...

Multi-day / staying overnight, 12 hours

I like to keep in less than 1 hour where possible.

 RiTides wrote:
Single day, definitely no more than 2 hours one way...

Multi-day / staying overnight, 12 hours

Same here.

For a one day event 1-2 hours each way

Multi day event probably 4-5 hours.

More than that and for me not really worth it, though tht may be because in the UK you very rarely have to travel further than that

Jangustus wrote:
For a one day event 1-2 hours each way

Multi day event probably 4-5 hours.

More than that and for me not really worth it, though tht may be because in the UK you very rarely have to travel further than that

See, that's my problem. Where I'm located, I'm set for the big 3 historical conventions (Historicon, Cold Wars, Fall In). But it seems like any other events are either up in New York or down in Virginia - and that's a long trip either way.

Depends on what type of event it is.

1-2 hours one way for a tournament.
Up to 5 hours one way for a decent convention.

For a single day? I wouldn't go more than 2-2.5 hours and it'd have to be really worthwhile.

My driving tolerance goes up as the following stack up:

1) Friends attending.
2) Good location to stay (hotel, etc.)
3) Free location to stay (with a friend)
4) Ladyfolk I know in the area (make the most out of the weekend trip)
5) Am I hosting a game/advertising my game?
6) If the convention is well priced, or really good (i.e. I've attended before and enjoyed it)

For a one day event I haven't attended, with no friends going? I'd probably skip it unless it was something special. But add several of the other list items? I'd probably be willing to do a 6-7-8 hour drive to get to a full weekend event if I had a good group to go with.

2 hours (ish) is my limit for a one-dayer.
(Sydney is a 2 hour drive from me for example).

For a 2+ day event, I'll consider up to a 6-7 hour drive. Longer than that, I'm going to fly the distance between.

Wow. You guys have no tolerance. My morning commute to work is easily 45 minutes on a good day. Afternoon is never under an hour. Then again, I have an economy car that gets great mileage so gas price isn't that big an issue for me.

For me the biggest concern is what time the event ends. I don't want to be getting back to my home at 02:00 or 03:00 in the morning.

I'm good with going 1-2 hours for a single day event. As for multi-day events, that would depend on the size/quality and how many of my friends were going too. The trip from my hometown to Adepticon in Chicago was about 7 hours, but it was worth it. My gaming group sent about 20 people there, so it was easy enough to split some rooms and mitigate the hotel costs. I'm sort of considering going to LVO next year, but for that I would have to fly.

Driving: a couple hours. I hate driving, and beyond that distance I'm going to start looking at other travel options.

Flying my own plane: ~4-5 hours, or about 500 miles. Anything around that range or less is a fun trip, beyond that the cost starts getting uncomfortably high and the chances of weather delays/cancellation get to a point where making it to the event is no longer reliable. And at that distance driving is unacceptable and last-second airline tickets are extremely expensive. Expecting to travel from NC to DC for NOVA this fall, and that's an easy short trip.

Flying commercial: anywhere in the US, for the right event. It's definitely the least-preferred travel option, but if the event is worth it I'll go. Just did X-Wing worlds in Minneapolis, and it was 100% worth it. The main limiting factor here is probably the quality of the event. There just aren't that many truly unique events that I can't replace with something easier to get to, so it's hard to justify the extra travel compared to a similar event with less travel involved.

I don't drive, so for me it's almost always public transport (which dictates where I can go in itself) but for bigger events I'm definitely willing to travel. I can easily get almost anywhere in Sydney in a little over 2 hours, and my commute is an hour and a half every weekday, so I'm fairly desensitised to spending long periods of time on a train for example, but I much prefer not having to carry cases and such with me for a long distance. When it comes to the big events, I'm going with a few friends so I'll have a way there and back sorted, and if it's further (Melbourne or Canberra) we'll stay in a cheap hotel to keep costs down. With how empty it is in Australia, we usually only drive 3 hours or so, flying in any other circumstance.

It's no good. No matter how many times I see this title, I still read "Time travel tolerance". Sorry.

I did too, i thought this thread was about peoples tolerance for time travel in fiction.

Im usually good for an hour or two away, depending. Sadly most days tournaments are held are on Saturdays, and I work saturday nights, so :(.

Lazy Englishman here.
2hrs tops.

Any further and it'd have to be something very special and I'd be staying the night.

I also tend to like a drink or two so public transport links or a designated driver are good for me.

I'm about 3.5-4 hours from two major cities, so I'll hit those for one day events. I'll do about 8 hours for a multi-day event.

Depends on the event, have done 5 hour round trips for a days gaming when I know it will be good, generally easier for a two day event to drive than stay over (usually cheaper as well)

For me 2h one way is about max I'm willing to consider for 1 day. 2 day event it's more bearable as a) day won't get TOO long(4h drive one way, long day of tournament, 4h back...That would even get danger of falling asleep while driving on back way!) b) price isn't that high per day. Obviously every hour travel will also add up to expense. The more time/money it costs per game the less it feels like worth it.

15mins tops. Occasionally make the effort to Warhammer World or London for salute and they're about an hour. Any more than 15 and no, not worth it for a game

 zedmeister wrote:
15mins tops. Occasionally make the effort to Warhammer World or London for salute and they're about an hour. Any more than 15 and no, not worth it for a game

The UK is so weird. 15 minutes is really the longest you'd be willing to drive? 15 minutes is a short trip in the US, even 30 minutes to get to a store (whether a game store or something else) is just an average day.

If there's an open bar and adult entertainment 30 mins travel, if not 20 mins

 Peregrine wrote:


The UK is so weird. 15 minutes is really the longest you'd be willing to drive? 15 minutes is a short trip in the US, even 30 minutes to get to a store (whether a game store or something else) is just an average day.

Pretty much. Got quite a few populous towns in 10-15 mins driving distance with lots of clubs to choose from

For an ordinary gaming session? My games club is half an hour from my house (and an hour or so from my work, annoyingly). For an all-day session? There's a games hall 45 minutes from me. I've driven for four hours one-way to attend a tournament before, but I'm not likely to do that again in a hurry (although I am planning to drive 5 hours one-way and stay overnight to go to the FW open day in July). Salute - one of the biggest one-day wargames shows in the UK - is a five-hour train journey. usually I make a long weekend of it - some friends and I go down on Friday, spend the afternoon in a museum and/or a pub, go to Salute on the Saturday, then go to a show or something on Sunday befor returning, but I have done the show in a day - train leaves here at 4 am, gets to London at 9, then the return train gets back here at 11 pm.

The furthest I've ever gone is a 7-hour drive to attend a 2-day Judge Dredd tournament at Mongoose Publishing's offices.

 Peregrine wrote:

 zedmeister wrote:
15mins tops. Occasionally make the effort to Warhammer World or London for salute and they're about an hour. Any more than 15 and no, not worth it for a game

The UK is so weird. 15 minutes is really the longest you'd be willing to drive? 15 minutes is a short trip in the US, even 30 minutes to get to a store (whether a game store or something else) is just an average day.

Admittedly 15 minutes is a bit extreme (you'd take longer to get from the outskirts of most UK cities to the centre) but I think Brits tend to see the US as equally weird. Travel times of 4+ hours are simply not that normal here for people travelling to events. I live in Edinburgh and within 2 hours of me I have about half a dozen medium or large cities by car or train that all host multiple gaming events year-round. Of those, the furthest I tend to travel is an hour. For very large events, or where the event is only part of the reason to attend, (X-Wing European Championships, for example) I might travel longer, but even then it's about 4 hours absolute maximum.

As a rule of thumb, I don't like spending more time travelling than I will playing.

For a games night, about an hour (preferably 30 minutes or less). Daytrip, up to 2 hours. Weekend events I've done up to 4 hours.

It’s not the travel time that bothers me ...closest game store is 20 miles or more...it’s the packing and hauling the crap around that’s annoying to me personally...

 Chute82 wrote:
It’s not the travel time that bothers me ...closest game store is 20 miles or more...it’s the packing and hauling the crap around that’s annoying to me personally...

Partly the same here, is a venue has a carpark on site and lets you park near the event I'm happier to travel further, stuff where parking is half a mile or so away, though seemingly infinite numbers of doors, all that need to be opened and I'm likely not going back

I'm not a great fan of driving so for me 2 hours would likely be the comfortable limit to attend an event and return on the same day. That's still a lot of travel (4 hours total) but its not so much that dominates the day and chances are you'll get more than 4 hours of entertainment at the end (its got to be something REALLY special to warrant spending more time travelling than attending).

2 hours also fits around food stops more easily, you can have a meal before you go or when you arrive; once you start getting longer travel times it tends to bump into a meal time more readily so you can easily lose half an hour to an hour of time stopping to eat (including messing around leaving the road on a sliproad to find the food outlet - made harder in the UK in recent years as Little Chef has mostly vanished - actually pretty sure they are all gone now - bought out by Starbucks :( )


For me if the travel time includes long periods where I'm not driving - ergo taking the train - then the travel time can go up. You can rest on the transport, get a quick bit of sleep or food etc... So fatigue becomes less of an issue (a major concern for the return trip).

Of course longer travel means leaving earlier so for some events this could mean missing the end of the event if one wants to travel in good light or without going far past midnight (fatigue and also night closures on many main roads which can easily add an hour or more to a journey on detours).



So I'd say if its more than 2 hours and I'm driving then I'd want to over-night somewhere closer.
Will go longer if its on other forms of transport, but at the same time overnighting can still be of benefit.



Also consider the day after. If I've got work or another commitment the next day (esp if its one that requires an early start) then that drastically drops the chances of me wanting to travel a very long distance (and thus likely arriving back late)

After an hour of travel time I want a hotel for overnight. If it takes more than 5, I'm looking at a plane or other form that involves me not having to drive.