Did you go on a roadtrip? If you've been following the site, you likely know that we did, and it was a big one - seven weeks and 8,000 miles. But even though we covered a lot of miles on our trip, we didn't have that many long days within the car. We tried to break the trip into smaller chunks, with several days off the road in between our driving days as well.
I'm comfortable with epic stints behind the wheel - when I was in grad school, I once drove from Orlando to Houston in a single day, stopping only to gas up and hit drive-thrus at meal times. (Human "pit stops" were reserved for when the gas was pumping.) That was over 1,000 miles in a day - my personal best.
But with a wife and kids now, the family can't comfortably endure that much driving in one day. We stretched on this trip to make it from Cincinnati to Orlando in one go, but that was with a 5 am start for a 15-hour day. Most driving days, though, we were comfortable spending up to nine to 10 hours in the car, averaging between 600-700 miles.
How long are you, and your family, comfortable in the car on a single day during a roadtrip? That's our vote of the week.
I've offered the options below in miles, but it might be helpful to think of them in terms of hours. Let's figure that, with highway speeds and occasional stops for food and gas, that you might average a touch over 60 miles per hour. That would place the first option at up to four hours in the car, the second at about four-to-eight hours, the third at eight-to-12 hours and the over 750 miles option at more than 12 hours a day in the car.
Or, if you don't care for roadtrips, and are more comfortable on a plane or train for out-of-town trips, that's an option available to you as well.
Let's hear more detail in the comments. What's the longest you've spent in the car on a one-day haul? Got any funny or frustrating roadtrip stories? We'd love to hear them.
Other than the pit stops, we stopped in N.C. for about an hour or so to eat supper. By 6 am Sunday morning I was really fighting to stay awake but at that point I didn't want to waste the money to stop at a hotel when we were only about 2 hours from home.
I would definitely do it again but I would say that right about 1000miles was my limit before i really had to push it to keep going.
As long as I have time to recover it's not bad. One of those trips was drive Friday, spend Saturday and Sunday in the park open to close, then drive back Monday. I wouldn't do that again. I was too tired on the way home. (Besides, if I buy a season pass for cedar fair parks, I could hit both Kings Island and Carowinds along that route without much of a detour. Why would I ever miss that opportunity.)
Yeah, I imagine the drive back was pretty horrible. That's probably the thing I dread the most. Driving there you'd be all full of excitement to get there.
My dad would drive straight through, we would usually leave around sunset or just before, my parents' plan was for the kids to sleep in the car for the first bit of the trip, then get a hotel in the Disney area and get a good sleep, then enjoy the park the next day.
It always worked pretty well--my dad wouldn't even switch off driving with my mom, he was at the wheel the entire time.
When my wife and I make our first trip from a bit further north (Dayton, OH) we are going to try about the same strategy. Either leave around midnight or early in the morning. I've budgeted two days each way, but it would be nice if we make it in one. I need to teach her to drive a manual first, thoug, so we CAN switch off if we need to.
Shows how things have changed..a few weeks ago, I attempted to drive back to Bayonne from Gastonia, NC..south of Charlotte/Carowinds...and could only make it halfway (Ashland, VA, near Kings Dominion) My body, and especially my eyes, told me not to push it.
This march we went north to NH for skiing at Loon, Waterville Valley and Bretton Woods in the White Mountains area of NH..
that was a brutal trip.. left friday afternoon with a stop in Potomac Falls VA out side DC, for the night.. then through DC, Baltimore, and NYC up through conn and out side Boston to ashland NH area where the Timeshare resort Cold Spring Resort was located..
Overall mileage was only about 800 according to google and 14.5 hrs.. but I can tell you it took like FOREVER.. the traffic in the NE corridor is HELL.. and this was a SAT..Still it took almost 16 hrs to do..
going through NYC across the George Washington Bridge and up Harry Hudson Parkway was cool for sure but its not for the faint of heart..
I, unlike my wife, prefer to go south for vacations, but for snow skiing that was the place to go driving, with so much good skiing within a 45 to hr drive.. next time I know what to expect and will be ready for the different nature of driving North..
That was about the limit to my drive distance and time in car for sure..
We did the Manassas to Tampa trip this summer, but broke it into two days, on the way down we used a stayover hotel in the middle of nowhere, on the way back we used Carowinds as an overnight stay to do their new Intimidator.
But what we lack in 1-day trips, we make up for in sheer number of stops I guess. This year we did a family trip to the mountains, followed by the Orlando trip, followed by a Busch Gardens/Virginia Beach Trip, followed by a Kings Island/Cedar Point Ohio trip, all in the month of August.
We've got a couple of shorter trips here in the fall, we just did the BG-Williamsburg and we're doing Hershey/Dorney park next weekend. Then it's just my daughter and I driving to KD every weekend (about 3 hours round trip) for our Haunt jobs.
My father drove from Memphis, TN to Elko, NV (1,750 miles) by himself, stopping only for gas and food back in '57 in a VW Beetle he bought while in the Army in Germany. Crazy.
On Labor Day weekend a bunch of them drove from northen Ohio to Kemah Boardwalk & SF Over Texas. Needless to say, very little sleeping was done on the trip. A week after that they drove to NYC to SFNE [Agawam, Massachusetts] to Lake Compounce [Bristol, Connecticut].
I guess my longest trip has been from northern Ohio to Carowinds to Kings Dominion. We drove straight to the Carolinas [8 hrs, I think?], stayed in a hotel, spent the next day in the park, drove 5 hours that night to Virginia to sleep a couple hours, spent the next day at Kings Dominion, & drove home 7.5 hours that night. Exhausting but so, so worth it :)
We are headed to Universal/Orlando from Raleigh, NC this fall and we are driving because my daughter doesn't want to hassel with all the airport security mess, luggage fees, etc. I don't drive and she wants to do it in one day so we asked her best friend to come with us. YEAH! That means Mom gets to tuck up in the back seat, read, sleep and play computer games while they do all the work. I'm liking this plan so long as I get regular potty breaks! I'm also glad the young women love roller coasters because this old body with a fused neck won't take those kind of rides anymore. Very unfortunate, but I am going to ride the Forbidden Journey and few other "tame" rides.!
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The longest time we spent in a car was like 16 hours coming home to West Texas from Vegas. Instead of taking ol' I-10 like normal people do, we decided(ok I decided) to take some back roads through Arizona and New Mexico. Not only was it longer and speed limits lower but it got down right scary through the desolate roads and this one eerie gas station we stopped.
We always chicken out when we plan a trip to Orlando and take a plane instead. One day we'll drive the 1700 miles or so, but most definitely make a stop for the night in New Orleans. Props to the people that drive extreme long distances, non-stop.