How far do you drive?

michelles1987

Earning My Ears
Joined
Jan 19, 2013
Messages
50
We have booked our resort and now in the dilemma of travel options. We would have to drive 18 hours to get there. We have three kids, is this an unreasonable amount of time to drive? Anyone drive this or more?
 
We always drive and we are outside of Chicago. Are you planning on driving the whole way through w/o stops? What usually works for us is we leave right after DH gets off work-around 5pm and drive 6 hours or so then stop for the night. Then we usually get up and hit the road by 9 and get as far south as possible--usually stop again in Locust Grove GE. Then next day we only have 5 hr drive and we are there. Another option we've done in the past is to go to bed early then get up and head out at 3am and drive same distance to Locust Grove before stopping for the night. Then picking up the rest of the way the next day. We stopped this method because DH hates getting up that early and I could never sleep anyways because I was so excited!

How old are your kids? We only have one who's ten. She brings along portable DVD Player, Music, various things she can so in the car.
 
We are planning on driving straight through. I am setting aside money for a room just in case, but the plan is to leave after I get off work and drive thru the night then get to Disney in the morning the next day. We have portable dvd players, tablets, games etc.
 
3 kiddos and they do well on car trips, but our max is about 7 hours before we fly DH is worse than the kids though.
 

1,008 miles door to door. Straight thru. Leave at 5:00pm in st. louis. Drive all night. Stop for breakfast in ocalla. arrive at WDW by 10:00am.

do the opposite going home. done this drive 15 times over the years.
 
DSLRuser said:
1,008 miles door to door. Straight thru. Leave at 5:00pm in st. louis. Drive all night. Stop for breakfast in ocalla. arrive at WDW by 10:00am.

do the opposite going home. done this drive 15 times over the years.

Thanks for making me feel like I am not crazy! We travel all over Texas so I am not too worried about it.
 
1370 miles one way from New England. We try to leave early 3-4 am and stop around 8 pm for the night. For us it's not the distance but the cost of airfare. Last year we went April school vacation and airfare round trip for 1 person was between $600 and $725, and there's 3 of us.
 
. For us it's not the distance but the cost of airfare. Last year we went April school vacation and airfare round trip for 1 person was between $600 and $725, and there's 3 of us.

same. to fly with good air fare, party of 4 = $1,200 on southwest.

We can drive for $300 in gas.
 
Last April was the first year me and my DH went
to Disney and our drive was 9 1/2 hours! The drive there wasn't as bad as the drive home it was just too long. This April we are flying there, I'm gonna be a lot happier waking up at 2am driving an hour and a 1/2 to the airport than last years leaving at 2am and getting to ASMo at 12:30pm. We'll arrive my 10am this year!
 
] waking up at 2am driving an hour and a 1/2 to the airport than last years leaving at 2am and getting to ASMo at 12:30pm. We'll arrive my 10am this year!

see to me, i think thats crazy. how much are you paying to save 2 1/2 hours?
 
$520.00, my DH and I thought very carefully over it. We also have nonstop flights back and forth. We never splurge on anything, I know a Disney trip isn't cheap but we decided we wanted to go a little overboard this year.
 
We began doing the drive again....after trips by plane and train...I don't fly any more and the train, though fairly cheap (450.00 for 2 round trip) just takes too long...

Amtrak for us is like 38 hours door to door... Big snag is the 8 hour layover in DC...

So we went back to driving...1050 miles one way...we can make WDW in 17+ hours arriving when "we" want...which is 6 am... Love having that whole day to have fun...

So driving costs us 250.00 round trip in gas and tolls...we leave 5 am...make Florida Welcome Center midnightish... Break for a couple hours there then continue on getting into WDW very early....

If Amtrak can shorten up that layover in DC, we will reconsider the train. We love traveling by train..
 
1370 miles one way from New England. We try to leave early 3-4 am and stop around 8 pm for the night. For us it's not the distance but the cost of airfare. Last year we went April school vacation and airfare round trip for 1 person was between $600 and $725, and there's 3 of us.

That is us, last April and this April. I started looking as soon as flights came out. I booked the auto train instead since we need a car-not going to Disney but to ft. Myers.

To the OP, my dh and I have driven from CT to as far as St. Louis in his 2 seated fiero. It wasn't bad but we were 15-20 years younger!

We drove for the first time last April to Florida. My dh said it took 24 hours but I am not sure. We have 3 kids (they were 11, 9 & 7 when we drove). Plus my mother drove down with us but flew home.

Our kids were good.

I got them each a trip tik thru AAA, yes I ordered 3 because I didn't want a fight.

They each had a container with stuff for the car, it helped that Easter was right before so I could put stuff in their baskets for the trip.

I printed out the basic bingo boards for them, a map of the us that they could color when they found a car from that state. And I used this scavenger hunt list:

http://faculty.deanza.edu/donahuemary/stories/storyReader$1473

But I did take out a few things like drunk drivers.

Living in a smaller state surrounded by smaller states, the worst part of the drive for my kids was when we went thru VA, NC, SC and GA. They kept asking how many more exits and how much longer. They didn't realize I had those same thoughts going thru my head.

We also used google traffic maps and now my dh is using waze to help those traffic maps stay current.
 
I have 3 kids (ages 4,6,8) and we always drive (about 15 hours each way). My kids are great travelers and it's an easy day for us - last time we left at 7 am and got home around midnight (with stops) but it was a fun day!
 
My husband dislikes driving, but I have anxiety every time we fly. I talked dh into trying to drive to WDW last summer. The kids were 8, 6 and 2. We drove straight through and it was perfect. We left at in the evening and drove straight through. We stopped at 9pm at a Mcdonalds and got ice cream got back in the car and everyone slept until 5am(we had to stop for gas or it would have been longer) we ate breakfast then and drove until lunch then drove the rest of the way(we stopped in Clearwater first for a couple of days). My kids never complained. My oldest dd was funny she was the bathroom break warden. We got out and she hurried us along so we could get there. We drove straight through home too. Same results...kids were great...actually so tired they slept a lot. I know we will have to fly again(dh says no driving to the west coast), but our vacation is in Tennessee this summer so driving again(maybe I'll never plan a west coast vacation again...;)) Oh, we drove 19 hours total with all breaks!

I say give it a try. It is nice to have our car and not do a rental and the savings are just an added bonus:woohoo:
 
I drive from Houston, about 950 miles. I have driven 14 hours to Ocala and spent the night there (both alone and with a driving partner). The hotel has a pool so the kids can get some exercise after being in the car all day. Bought groceries there next morning and after less than a two hour drive, we were at WDW by 11. Nice to have a long first day at the resort to settle in. I have also driven straight through - 5am to 9pm) and that worked well, too. The electronics make the trip easy. I also take Travel Madlibs and a white board for Hangman, tic-tac-toe, etc. I take plenty of snacks so nobody gets hungry. (Hungry = Gripey)

If you will take I10, it it an EASY route, plenty of rest stops along the way. We love our road trips!
 
we've done the whole 17 hours from Chicagoland a few times(last time our daughter was 3), going to do it on the way back this trip.

On the way down however we are stopping in Macon, GA. about 12 hours drive, the next day would only be about 4 hours to St. Augustine for lunch(seafood) and the beach, then about 2 hours to Orlando to check in. Our daughter is 7 this trip, leaving at approx. 10 p.m., driving through the night(she can sleep) then stopping in Macon around noon to eat lunch, then hopefully check into the room for a swim and a then early dinner.

Leaving at night to allow the others in the car to sleep for a good chunk of the miles.
 
We are planning on driving straight through. I am setting aside money for a room just in case, but the plan is to leave after I get off work and drive thru the night then get to Disney in the morning the next day. We have portable dvd players, tablets, games etc.
I know someone who drives straight through from northern Illinois to Florida every year, but I would never do so. Such a drive seems way too unpleasant and dangerous (from being too tired).

Driving tired equals driving impaired (from Mythbusters):

http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/about-this-show/tired-vs-drunk-driving.htm

Facts and Stats:

http://drowsydriving.org/about/facts-and-stats/

Driving under severe sleep depravation, while your body's internal clock tries to make you fall asleep, can be very dangerous. If you nod off while driving, it can be deadly (or you may be lucky and just wind up with your car stuck in muddy ditch). And even if you can manage to stay awake, the impairment to your reaction time is dangerous.

If you really want want to drive to Florida after the end of the your work day, consider driving for 4 hours or so to a location where you have a hotel reservation at a decent inexpensive hotel (such a Fairfield Inn or Holiday Inn Express). Then resume your drive the next morning when you're alert.
 
There would be DH and I driving and he is off the day we plan on leaving. So we can rotate napping in the passenger seat.
 
We also drive from the Chicago o'hare area we stop just passed Macon weather permitting leaving bright and early the next day to have a afternoon check in at one time we drove straight thru but we were so tired when we arrived we just slept on arrival day now that we stay over night the first day is not wasted due to a lack of sleep
 












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