Best time of day to travel Southbound 5 from NorCal?

[MrsMears]

Hi Everyone! Late Thursday PM or Early Friday AM, I will be getting into a rental car with my pooch and heading down to Anaheim for a little bit of ME time at the parks before my husband flys in on Saturday evening.

What is the best time of day to travel down I5 from Sacramento? I'm thinking that if I left around 4AM I would avoid all rush hour traffic and hit DL between 10&11. What do you think?

 

[larina]

We like to leave as early as possible in the morning, although when we went at Christmas, our first day at DL was a Friday, and we drove down a bit later on Thursday, stayed a little bit out of town and bowled. Then we got up early and headed over. Usually we get to DL in the early afternoon, check our bags with out hotel/motel and head to the parks. Your 4 idea sounds good to me. We left at 2 once, to get in a full day in the parks, which was nice, but I hate being on the road at that time!

 

[MrsMears]

We like to leave as early as possible in the morning, although when we went at Christmas, our first day at DL was a Friday, and we drove down a bit later on Thursday, stayed a little bit out of town and bowled. Then we got up early and headed over. Usually we get to DL in the early afternoon, check our bags with out hotel/motel and head to the parks. Your 4 idea sounds good to me. We left at 2 once, to get in a full day in the parks, which was nice, but I hate being on the road at that time!

If you don't mind me asking.. why don't you like to be on the road at that time? Because it's dark? Because you are more likely to be tired? Too many truckers? I'm still trying to figure out what I will and won't be comfortable with.. but my biggest concern is not getting stuck in LA traffic after driving for six hours!

 

[Girimama33]

I was born and raised in Orange County and currently live in Sacramento. We take this trip often to visit family, DL.
The problem I found with I5 especially is that there may be traffic at anytime of day in the LA area, so I would anticipate some...especially if you leave Friday morning.
What time would you leave if you left on Thursday?

 

[Minnie Loves Mickey]

We like to leave at 3or 4 in the morning from the south bay. It takes 5 1/2 to 6 hours and usually no traffic or road construction delays at that time.

 

[3Minnies1Mickey]

We leave Modesto (about 90 minutes south) at 6-7am but travel 99. If we leave at 7 we usually hit a little traffic on I5 in Downtown LA around noon. We have left at 2-3am before but that was because it was only a one night trip.

 

[DTDkettleCORNfan]

The few times we have left the Sacramento area by 5am, we are able to get to our Anaheim hotel without any traffic (including one breakfast stop + one restroom stop). The times when we have left later in the morning (between 7:30am to 9:00am) we have hit traffic on I-5....which seems to begin around Magic Mountain and is then pretty thick the rest of the way. We have driven on Sat, Sun and Mon. The earlier the better!!!

 

[Gothemi]

The only time we have never had any traffic issues is when we left around 6PM. We got into the area around 10 PM and had not one traffic back up. We have left early morning before (3-4AM), but it makes the rest of the day seem long and we're usually pretty tired. Plus, most stops along I-5 are still closed that early.

As an early poster mentioned...LA will almost always have some sort of traffic.

 

[coaches24]

We are leaving Sacramento at 2am on Monday. I plan to sleep very little on Saturday night so I can get to bed early Sunday and not be so tired when we leave. DW and DD will I'm sure sleep more in the car after we leave.

 

[cyclenut]

We have made this trip a few times recently. If you travel SB through LA anytime between noon and 8pm, you will experience some traffic delays. The worst time begins around 3pm and starts to get better around 6pm. As long as you reach Valencia (LA side of the grapevine) by noon, even though you will experience some traffic, you should be fine.

 

[DarthMole]

We're planning on leaving Auburn around 4-5am on a Monday which should get us down there around noonish. As others have said, expect traffic regardless but time it out on Google Maps and try to avoid the LA area during normal commute hours. Your best bet is probably to leave late Thursday if you don't mind driving at night.

 

[taaren]

Another vote for driving at night, if you're okay with napping the first day. We used to live in Solano and would leave around 10 or 11p and get into Orange County before rush hour traffic. Its tougher with one driver, (we would often switch drivers when we filled up just north of the Grapevine) but with naps the afternoon before and after its a really painless drive.

 

[QueenBeeMB]

We leave between 2 and 3 am and avoid all traffic. Normally about 20 mins before the Parks exit off 5 we hit a slow down. But nothing too bad.

 

[pixiewings71]

We leave before 9 am, that means we get into LA and miss most of the rush hour traffic. We do like to leave earlier some trips, it just depends on how long its been since we've been to DL.

 

[disneegrl4eva]

We leave Modesto (about 90 minutes south) at 6-7am but travel 99. If we leave at 7 we usually hit a little traffic on I5 in Downtown LA around noon. We have left at 2-3am before but that was because it was only a one night trip.

i live in merced and take the 99 as well...If my plans are to go to the park the same day I drive down then I def. leave at 4am...i stop in Bakersfield for about half hour for restroom/coffee/walk around break and get into DL around 9ish...however, I also dont do I5 all the way down...I hate I5 traffic so bad that i do 99 to I5 and break off at the 210E pasadena fwy and take that all the way down to san dimas(about 35 min.) and get on 57S straight into anaheim...i totally bypass traffic...unless im driving down during a holiday or in the afternoon (which i will pull my hair out before i do) I never run into traffic jams

 

[DharmaLou]

I didn't do it to drive to DLR, but I left the East Bay at 4am to drive down for an afternoon baseball game and we made it in great time and traffic was more than tolerable. I want to say we made it to Angela Stadium at around 10:30 or so, with a stop at Starbucks along the way once we found one that was open!

 

[kylie71]

My vote is to leave early as you can in the morning. We would leave Reno at 4am, and hit the Anderson Pea Soup in Santa Nella for breakfast, around 7ish... the least amount of traffic that time of day I believe.

Have a Blast!

Lori

 

[AwkwardTurtle]

Just as some info, they're doing quite a bit of construction on the 5 around the Commerce area, so I would prepare for traffic regardless. Also, on Fridays it starts to get really bad about 2:30-3:00 in the afternoon. Have fun!

 

[larina]

If you don't mind me asking.. why don't you like to be on the road at that time? Because it's dark? Because you are more likely to be tired? Too many truckers? I'm still trying to figure out what I will and won't be comfortable with.. but my biggest concern is not getting stuck in LA traffic after driving for six hours!

I don't like being on the road when bars get out. The truckers and dark don't bother me at all!

Our last trip, the main reason we went early was just not to drive 5 on a Friday. It just seems crazy every time we do (we use 5 a lot), even when not going as far as LA.

 

[MrsMears]

:::waves to all of the fellow Sacramento area DL'ers:::

Thanks for all of the great insight and information everyone!!