dh and i leave central jersey [near asbury park] around 8:30 am, stop for gas at the maryland house, stop next for lunch and gas in roanoke rapids and stop for the nite in florence, sc [the 5th exit #157 around 6:00pm. from there it is about a 3hr trip to the hhi resort. we are used to long drives since we often travel 7.5 hrs to a vacation house in maine. and we have only ourselves to be concerned for since we don't have any children to accompany us on our trips. i'm sure that such a schedule would have to be modified if travelling with tots/teens.
at exit 157 there is a newly refurbed ramada [haven't stayed there yet], a day's inn [usually stay there 'cause we get a gov't rate and trip rewards points and free wifi], a holiday inn express and then there is the swamp fox inn [all rooms $29]. day's inn could prob use a refurb - but it is decent and it offers coffee/tea, danish, juice, waffles, cereal in the morning. there is a ryan's buffet [small southern chain] just down the street a couple of miles or a mcdonald's right next door or a southwest style restaurant right at the motel. the ramada has a restaurant attached also. we use the citgo gas station down the road toward ryan's to gas up because they always have the least expensive gas among the stations in the area.
if ya can't make it all the way to florence, sc exit 157, i can recommend stopping in gold rock north carolina. we stayed there on our last trip north [we drove from charleston, sc] - there was prob a half dozen chain motels there with reasonable prices - we stayed at the howard johnson's because i wanted the trip rewards points - but i think there were cheaper prices. the motel room we had there was clean and pffered free wifi.
there are a couple of websites [http://www.usastar.com/i95/homepage.htm] and [http://www.travelcoupons.com/] that i like to check out before any of our trips. the latter site has the same info as the travel brochures you can pick up at any rt 95 rest stop.
if ya have any other questions come up that ya think i might be able to help with, just pm me and i'll be happy to share whatever else i can think of.
