Driving down - would you go 100 miles out of your way to avoid traffic?

[Judique]

When we've driven from MD (many, many times!), we go I-95, but we get up and leave at 3 a.m.

I vote for going to bed early and getting up very early on Saturday morning.

Or leaving at 6pm, not 3 pm or even 1pm as Anal Annie may have mentioned earlier.

I find leaving at 3-5pm just puts me in traffic and I am on the south end of the beltway. Leave 3-5 and lose 1 - 1 and 1/2 hours. I like to leave a bit later if I'm leaving in the evening after work and Drive to North Carolina maybe as far as Roanoke Rapids or Rocky Mount, spend the night and leave after breakfast the next day and you will arrive at checkin.

It's that Springfield to Fredericksburg mess that holds us up. Once the HOV lanes merge down there traffic usually gets moving.

 

[vicki_c]

have you tried taking 301 on the east side of 495 all the way down to richmond?

We go this way but because it's close to my house (near Annapolis). And traffic when we leave on Fridays late afternoon can be quite hellish that way too. We still prefer it over 95.

 

[winnie77]

I live in pa and when I go to Disney I go 81 and down that way. The 2 times I have gotten on 95 no matter what time of the day I have gotten stuck in traffic where I was stopped dead or was crawling along. I much prefer 81 to 77 to 26 to 95. Much more relaxing

 

[gkrykewy]

Why is this a thing in 2015? Enter destination on smartphone, acquire shortest possible route at any point in time, and it's even dynamically updated to adjust for any incidents along the way.

To answer directly, no, I wouldn't travel 100 miles out of the way, unless Google told me it was faster right then.

 

[DVC96]

Check out expresslanes.com. They have better info on the variable tolls, ez passes, etc than I can give you. Have you thought about getting a good nights sleep and leaving early sat morning?

 

[Anal Annie]

WELL, I had a brief discussion with DH about this stuff this evening…turns out that when I emailed him our vacation dates so he could ask off he didn't read the part about leaving after work on the 24th he only read "the 24th" so he says he's got the whole day off!! We can leave whenever we're packed & ready next Friday!! I'm thinking mid-morning now, after rush hour (DS will have one final swim practice that morning from 5:20 - 7:40 so by the time he gets home & showered we may as well wait until after the AM rush hour dies down). Our reservation at BCV isn't until the 25th so we can try to put in a 10 hour or so day on Friday and finish up the rest on Saturday morning!

I'm thinking I like the idea of at least returning home on the I-77 / I-81 route because of nighttime road construction on I-95 & the Beltway….

 

[dgaston]

Safe journey. Rocky Mount and Santee both have lots of hotels with breakfasts.

 

[circhead]

I drive from NYC area and have taken to doing I78 to 81 to 77to 26 to 95 in South Carolina. Adds about 60 to 90 minutes but I'm moving the whole time, have found better and cheaper food offerings and am not sitting in construction zones or traffic delays the whole state of Va. Also save close to 50 dollars in tolls compared to I95 through NJ and Delaware.

Much prettier scenery too.

 

[circhead]

There's lots of really good hotels in Columbia, SC because there's an army base there that does basic training and the parents go to graduation. However that leaves you roughly 7 hours the next day. This is where I stop on the way north.

 

[smadath]

I live in SW PA. I must have just been timing it right, but I've never been on the DC Beltway when everyone wasn't driving at least 95mph. (I was guessing everyone took 'I-95' as a directive instead of a road name) Gotta say going 95 in bumper to bumper traffic is a bit unnerving.

I'd go 100 miles out of my way to avoid having a nervous breakdown.

<--- Happy Driver, not on Beltway.

 

[Pigletpal40]

We come down from New England and take 81 most of the time to 77 in N.C. to 26 in S.C. which ends up on 95 outside Savannah. Way more scenic and as long as there's no construction (check first). Then we're not sitting in traffic in Mass, Hartford, NYC, D.C. and Richmond.

 

[MouseMomx2]

We drive down from New England, take 95 all the way and, aside from NOVA, rarely have traffic issues. We do make sure to plan our departure time to avoid rush hour in most locations. We usually leave either at 2am or wait until 7:30/8:00am. Traffic gets a bit thicker in Baltimore when we leave earlier and Richmond when we leave later, but (again aside from nasty NOVA) it's smooth sailing otherwise. If it wasn't so far out of our way to take a different route to avoid NOVA I'd do it...but I'd rather sit in traffic for an hour than go three hours out of my way.

 

[MommyMK]

We are from MD and just drove down 95 this past Saturday to get to OBX. Of the entire drive, 95 from just outside the beltway to Richmond was the worst. I did use the EZPass express lane (think I paid $11? for the privilege) and still got stuck in tons of traffic where the express lanes ended. I don't think my speedometer went above 40 miles an hour once we were out of the express lanes and there were lots and lots of times where I was dead stopped. We are headed to Myrtle Beach in the fall and had been debating 95 vs 81 since 95 is theoretically 2 hours faster. This trip definitely showed us 81 is the way to go. We ended up arriving in OBX within minutes of our friends driving down from NJ (2 hour longer drive) due to all the 95 traffic even though we left at the same time.

 

[dgaston]

Safe and quick or at least moving journey tomorrow...

 

[Anal Annie]

Safe and quick or at least moving journey tomorrow...

Thank you! I've been a packing FIEND the past couple of days (I'm living up to my screen name by IRONING everything I pack before I pack it). And I'm organizing 1 lg. bag for all of us for our first 5 n at BCV then another large bag for all of us for AKV with a smaller duffle to hold all of our swim suits and sunscreens etc. as we're planning a water park day on our move day (weather permitting). We no longer get the weather channel on our TVs so it's driving me crazy - looking at the weather channel online it sorta looks like we're heading down to pretty much all day rain for Saturday. We go often at this time of year but I've never had a forecast for only 83 degress in July (and since there's like a 90% chance of rain I'm thinking it means an all-day kind of rain).

We have decided to try to hit the road around 10 or 10:30 in the morning and drive for about 10 hours or so and I think we'll stick to the I-95 route as I just hate to add distance if we don't have to. But we can check the route in the morning before we leave. That should get us to around Savannah, GA by 8:00 or 8:30 tomorrow evening. I never made it to the bank today (or to the grocery store to grab a couple of things) so may have to make a quick pit-stop on the way out in the morning….

 

[dgaston]

Hope that I-95 works for you. You know I love the alternative route. Godspeed.

 

[WilsonFlyer]

Safe journey. Rocky Mount and Santee both have lots of hotels with breakfasts.

But 20 miles south, we have Parker's and Bill's.

 

[bobbiwoz]

Happy traveling!

 

[keishashadow]

I live in SW PA. I must have just been timing it right, but I've never been on the DC Beltway when everyone wasn't driving at least 95mph. (I was guessing everyone took 'I-95' as a directive instead of a road name) Gotta say going 95 in bumper to bumper traffic is a bit unnerving.

I'd go 100 miles out of my way to avoid having a nervous breakdown.

<--- Happy Driver, not on Beltway.

another SW PA driver. Haven't driven to FLA in years (thank you SWA lol)

when we do head south on I-95/295 we avoid the Beltway. get off @ breezewood on turnpike, thru Winchester and pick up 95 north of Ashland. word is getting out and it's getting more developed as suburbia, not quite as peaceful of a route anymore.

even though it's a longer drive on paper, depending on traffic around Richmond, much prefer taking I-77 (beware Berkley springs speed traps!) to I-26 to I-95

 

[mhochman]

have you tried taking 301 on the east side of 495 all the way down to richmond?

I did this last year and loved it. Will be doing it again next week. At first you think you've made a mistake because of the traffic lights, but once the lights (mostly) go away, it becomes an awesome route.