Trips, welcome and I hope it all works out for you
GtW:
The OP says he is in Tennessee, hence southern US. There a PPL is A LOT more useful for travel than it is anywhere in Europe. Of course, you'll never have the dispatch rate of the airlines, bit with a bit of flexibility, yes, you can use your airplane to go places (as you can, to a degree, in Europe, not everywhere is the same !!!!!e wx and airspace as the UK). All that said, an IR is definitely a good idea!
On a more general note, I'm not so sure if it makes sense at all to compare travel via the airlines with private flying. Private flying really comes into its own on trips of say, 2-3 hours from one small(ish) place to another where a car would simply take too long or be too tedious (leaving the sheer boredom of driving aside).