For 2,000+ mile round-trip drivers only!

[MLC]

What are the must haves that i need in the car for a 6 year old,3 year old and a 3 month old?

 

[loveysbydesign]

We have been debating the 95 all the way or the 78-81 route ourselves!!! It's nice to see someone who just did that drive. According to google maps it really is only a 45 minute difference. We are leaving on August 21st around 2 or 3am and hoping to get to Kingsland, Georgia by 7 or 8pm that night, we reserved a hotel room, but made sure we can cancel by 6pm if we don't make it that far!

My friend just drove to Florida 2 days ago on 95...had over 3 hours of stop and go traffic due to construction...now she'll be driving home 81 instead...she said 95 was miserable!

 

[loveysbydesign]

Thanks! Did you get off I 81 on 77 to head over to 95? That's what we are thinking? And are there rest stops along I 81?

We took 81-77-26-95.
Plenty of rest stops...more than we needed actually and my little guy has to use the potty a lot!!! The drive was actually pretty nice...and this is coming from a family that never drove longer than 4 hours before for a trip! The mountains are beautiful, especially through Virginia.
Next time we drive we're planning a pit stop at one of the caverns.

 

[PrincessMom4]

What are the must haves that i need in the car for a 6 year old,3 year old and a 3 month old?

It depends on what they like. I know a DVD player makes life a lot easier especially if we get stuck in traffic. I would say one of those travel aqua doodles, piper cleaners in a variety of colours (older two) and some favourite baby toys. Some babies love the squeeky kind;some don't. Snacks, snacks and more snacks. Cheese strings tend to be fairly popular here. If your older child play with clay or playdough.

 

[PrincessMom4]

We usually take I81-I66-US17-I95. Depending on traffic reports we take the I295. I find the construction traffic in PA has been better than it was our first trip. We took 7 hours to drive through PA in 2007. Last time we did it around 4 hours.

 

[dvczerfs]

it's a great drive! We just went that way 2 weeks ago and it was such a beautiful drive. We didn't hit and traffic snarls or construction! We would drive that way again in a heartbeat!

 

[dvczerfs]

I started a separate thread but wondering if any of you here might have advice.
We are in Central western NJ- I am thinking about driving down I81 to 77 to 26 to 95. But am second guessing that. We usually do I 95 the whole way. *basically with a couple go arounds near dc and richmond.

It is longer mileage wise- but I am wondering if the traffic is better? or even if it's a prettier drive. Might be nice for a change but really not looking to add too much time onto the drive. I am guessing about an extra hour but may make up for that by avoiding traffic.

if we are going down during the summer or holiday week travel days we take 81/77/26/95. its a nice rides. when we go off season we take another way which shaves off about 2 hours.

 

[shafke]

My friend just drove to Florida 2 days ago on 95...had over 3 hours of stop and go traffic due to construction...now she'll be driving home 81 instead...she said 95 was miserable!

Were was the construction? was it in GA or somewhere else? What time of day did they hit the construction?

We drove down last year and they had I95 closed around Brunswick, GA for about 30 minutes to move some heavy equipment. We are driving again in August and need to find out where and when construction work is occurring.

 

[Amirah95]

Here now the news...

A few days ago the "For 2,000+ Mile Round-Trip Drivers Only!" thread topped the 200,000 views mark. Cool.

Do a quick click back to page 1 and see the original question that was posted. Lots of great folks have participated and contributed info that has made many a drive safer and more enjoyable.

All the best.

Now, let's get back to the road....

I was here since the beginning and I CANNOT this thread is still alive. Sweet!!! The more roadtrippers the better I say!

 

[BC1836]

I was here since the beginning and I CANNOT this thread is still alive. Sweet!!! The more roadtrippers the better I say!

Indeed...this is the place for the long-drive crowd, those who have considered the drive or fly option.

Gas prices creeping up again, though.

[Ever notice the threads that ask questions about long-distance drives that are certainly more than 1,000 miles one way but can't seem to figure out that this thread may be what they are looking for?]

All the best.

 

[Gowahoowa]

Hi fellow 2000+ mile drivers,

We are heading out mid August on our 5th drive to WDW!! We love road trips!! Anyway, we have always used our road atlas to guide our travels. Not that we are against GPS units, but our Ford Expedition doesn't have one and we never considered buying one...until now. No reason, just catching up with the rest of the world. Now, our budget is between $200 and $400. What do people recommend? I've researched them all and I'm about to buy a new road atlas because my head is dizzy.....Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. And happy and safe driving to all......

 

[amtag]

We have a Nextar GPS - not sure of the brand, I can find out for you, but it was much less than $200 and it works great!

 

[Amirah95]

My DH is a atlas guy, but he's been using his Iphone lately to get us from here and there. He absolutely refuses to buy a GPS, but the one I've been looking into is the Garmin Nuvi 500 3.5" Multi Mode every time I go to Costco. It costs 200 bucks. I have a Garmin Heart Rate Monitor so I think the brand is awesome. Anyway, if I get it I'll be sure to do a review.

 

[awaldo]

My DH is a atlas guy, but he's been using his Iphone lately to get us from here and there. He absolutely refuses to buy a GPS, but the one I've been looking into is the Garmin Nuvi 500 3.5" Multi Mode every time I go to Costco. It costs 200 bucks. I have a Garmin Heart Rate Monitor so I think the brand is awesome. Anyway, if I get it I'll be sure to do a review.

Check out the GPS Drive app from MotionX for the iPhone. It works great and gives great directions. You have to buy a "subscription" to get the live voice directions, like a Garmin gives you, but is much less expensive. I think it works great. I got a little dashboard holder for my iPhone and it works well instead of buying a stand-alone GPS.

 

[sharadoc]

We returned from Tennessee this evening and once again saw more big rigs on I-81 than I-95. Scenic, to be sure, but too many big rigs remain in the left lane and huff & puff on the hills which results in traffic slowdowns. That doesn't happen (except in a few spots) on I-95 during a WDW round-trip drive.

The tradeoff? Traffic was heavy at times on I-95 N in Maryland (once we arrived via the Beltway) but it was stop and go heading south. Super slow.

Still, our next drive to WDW will be I-95 all the way. But after we leave very, very early in the morning.

All the best.

Yes, totally agree. We did okay on Monday in DC at 2:30. I'l planning to do a full report in a couple of days, but we got "stuck" in the 395 north lane (DH was driving!!! ) so we had to do local through DC. NOT what we wanted to do, but we were early enough that we lost around 20 minutes in the stop n go on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway part.

We feel so comfortable with 95 that we don't want to change. Leave early or late enough to avoid the real rush hour and the little bit of traffic is tolerable.

 

[sharadoc]

There are many folks on this thread who have lots of driving experience and knowledge. And besides, not even counting their road smarts, they are pleasant, courteous and fun. When we started this thread we were looking for folks who shared our driving experiences. But what we discovered were people who were more than just marathon drivers: They were good folks, real good folks.


All the best.

I was talking about you guys on the drive to my DH and said that I so wish that we could get together some time at WDW. I'm sure our trip dates would never mesh, but I couldn't agree more about the good folks here. I call it the greatest thread on the DISboard - best people, best info

 

[mamaprincess]

We are really excited about our upcoming road trip. We started talking about some of the advantages of driving down. Airplanes are so germ filled and you are breathing recycled air, there is always some one coughing nearby and I am always anxious about us catching something on the way down. We take loads of vitamins and have been pretty lucky but yuck on the airplane coughers. We will be bringing groceries down instead of taking time from that first day to shop. We can be flexible about the time that we get there. We want to arrive early and leave later.

We own DVC and need to take advantage of the 11 mos window because we would like to keep our stays at the SSR treehouses and AKV value rooms (both great deals point wise). Airfare opens up 6mos out and those rooms are long gone by then especially for December which is when we love to travel. This year we tried to book the minute the flights opened for December and it was mayhem! By the time we were able to get through, flights had already gone up for our dates. We would have had to move our dates around to get somewhat decent air fare and because of the popularity of our accomodations there was no way we would be able to do that. I made an executive decision that Southwest had lost it's mind and we were going to drive. Next year we won't have to worry about trying to fly on a tuesday or something because flights on other days in December (vacation week) are nuts. We will be coming in on a weekend and leaving when it suits us. I can make my room reservations knowing this and not panicking about airfare when June hits.

As a family of five even with gas and hotel driving will save us upwards of $1,800 and that ain't nothin' to sneeze at! DH and I are really looking forward to this road trip. We did a few 10 hour road trips when the twins were 3. We all loved those trips. We will be splitting up our drive in 11 hours the first leg with Dh and I sharing driving (talked him into it last night) and 7 hours the second leg. We are going to stay over night in Mcdonough at the Comfort Suites (room for family of 5 and good rates), because DH likes this area (had a business trip there recently).

Happy and safe drive 2,000 miles plus disers!

 

[Bell30012]

I'm sorry but there will always be road construction when you pass through Georgia. It's a just one of those inevitable facts that we here in the ATL have learned to accept.

Over my life I've made trips from Ohio to WDW and Rhode Island to WDW. I'm so glad I live much closer now. Even though we are just under 8 hours driving time to WDW we fly most trips.

Each of my vehicles has a different GPS solution. I have a Tom Tom One, a very old Garmin Streetpilot III and a Pioneer AVIC-D3. In addition the free app called Maps that is on the iPhone and iPad work great. Consider that unless you really want to smell the manure you'll be traveling down well known and more importantly OLD arteries. Even the cheapest GPS solution has these roads in it.

Have a good safe trip... See in the "World".

 

[Amirah95]

Awesome mamaprincess! Enjoy yourselves!

 

[caitlinsdad]

I have a garmin nuvi 350, a few years old, but still works. Looking at replacing it with garmin 1260t includes Receive Free Traffic Alerts

and hands-free calling, Bluetooth® wireless technology with a built-in microphone and speaker