daughter has taken the bus a few times and for Thanksgiving is getting a ride home with an older girl who has a car on campus and getting a ride back with someone her age who somehow has permission to have a car. I prefer the busses cuz I think they are safer but there are advantages to travel by car. I tried to suggest certain conditions like traveling while it is light out due to so many deer & moose strikes heading to VT. on my day trip last month I was amazed at all the blood stains on the highway
Sometimes I think no matter how they travel, we hold our breath until they arrive in our own driveway!
Suggest if you like, but she will probably be at the mercy of the driver as to when/how they travel . I hope you will be planning to pay the driver for her services!!! 
It gets dark at about 5 around here. Some students just may not be able to travel in daylight.
One of my kids got a ride with friends a couple of times. It sure was convenient. He also took the bus…and we drove him too.
The other kid flew. You know…as noted, if you are going to,worry, it doesn’t matter how they travel.
We are very lucky. The school both our daughters attended provide bus transportation for major breaks. So even though the school is 235 miles away, it is very easy to get them home.
“The other kid flew. You know…as noted, if you are going to,worry, it doesn’t matter how they travel.”
Isn’t that the truth, thumper? The good old days.
S went to school in Maine so I had the deer and moose fear (plus H was driving one night and we hit a deer - it was very scary and lots of damage to front end of car.) I always worried when he was driving from school and back.
Both my kids fly home. One takes a taxi the other will drive her car to the airport. Of course neither is traveling the same days so it will be 4 trips to the airport. We are sending a car service for 2 of the trips.
My kids have always flown home–only way to get to Honolulu unless you have a yacht or similar anyway.
Kid 1 was fortunate to be able to easily take Amtrak home. Not really an option for Kid 2; he flies home. There are sometimes ride shares available, but it’s about a 7 hr. drive through some mountain areas (not a fun drive) so I’m happy to have him take the one hour flight.
Kid #1 used to take the train home, occasionally she would get a ride. Kid #2 would get a ride or we would go get him (he was about an hour away). Kid#3 flies home. He either takes public transportation, or an Uber to the airport.
My kids either get a shuttle or catch a ride with a friend between home and airport.
D2 could easily get a ride home from someone at school, but I prefer for her to take a bus home. It feels safer to me and she could get home when she wants instead of having to wait for someone. The route from Ithaca to NYC can be difficult in the winter and many kids are tired after prelims and finals.
We (H and I alternated) usually were the chauffeurs for son and HS friends at the same U 2 1/2 hours away. Usually a quiet ride as they all seemed to sleep most of the trip.
You could remind your kid to be a good passenger: stay awake to keep driver company, watch for animals in the road, hand driver drinks or snacks, handle radio and gps, be the navigator, read road signs, stop distracting behavior from other passengers.
I don’t really see the difference between ride shares and hitchhiking. One of my kids refused to use ride shares and always took buses home from school because the idea of riding with a stranger, who may or may not have been a responsible driver, was too unnerving.
Ride shares aren’t necessarily comfortable even if you’re the driver. When I was in college, I had a car some of the time, and one time I offered a ride home to a girl whom I vaguely knew from the dorm, who lived along the way. I failed to ask her “Do you have a pet chicken who’s going to sit in a cage between your feet and make noise and smell up the car all the way during a six-hour drive?” Ooops.
@Marian, yes that would be difficult to anticipate, lol.
My son is 1,800 miles away in Colorado and always has flown back-and-forth from our home on the east coast. He flies home tonight as his university’s on the quarter system and now has a six-week winter break.Near the end of December he’ll be flying to Chicago to visit his girlfriend and then the two of them will drive back to Colorado in time to start classes on Jan. 4. She’s done the drive before. They’ll stop overnight once on the trip from Chicago to Colorado.
D came home with a friend, S1 drove himself and one other. Two students from my kids’ college have died in head-on collisions driving home for Thanksgiving. Two lane roads, good visibility, mistakes were made trying to pass, and families are heartbroken. I trust my kids but still may drive the 250 miles myself from now on.
One of our daughters just had a sudden change of plans. She was driving with a friend who lives in Boston , but had a family emergency and had to leave early. Just booked her a flight home and trying to figure out who is going to pick her up when she arrives in the middle of my cooking frenzy 
I never hitchhiked nor did rideshare. I did once end up in the back seat of a two-seater’s Carmenghia – it was miserable and never want to repeat that!
Lyft and Uber, to me aren’t much better, except you’re paying for the ride. Not sure how much vetting there is of drivers.