What's the best time to start drive down from northern NJ?

[Johnnyecks]

personally I think it depends on the type of person you are. we're night people and prefer to do the overnight with no traffic. we've driven 3 times now, twice to disney and once to Fort Lauderdale. did the two Disney trips as overnighters straight through on sat-sun and the FtL as a split drive, 10 hours one day, spend the night, 10 hours the next day, again sat/sun, down and back.

for the FtL drive we wanted to kill ourselves. the extra "traffic" on the road (not backups, just people. although on the way back we did hit a traffic jam after DC I think. that was Sunday, North bound, probably 4pm-ish? getting hard to remember) and for some reason just being during the day made 10 hours on the road seem like an eternity. and then we had to repeat the next day! and then we had to do in reverse for the way back! even my husband, who has always claimed to not mind long drives, has forbidden another day trip like that. [i for years forbade driving to FL when flights are only 2 hours in the air and you'd spend 9 times that on the road which i thought would drive me crazy. he understands my reluctance after doing that trip]

for the Disney trips, Orlando is a shorter drive so we've been leaving around 6 - 7 pm (generally by accident), drive straight through with just gas/potty stops, one dinner stop, and one breakfast/gas combo stop in the morning. we've been at the hotel by noon at least both times. being a night person i had no trouble being up all night and i'd normally be sleeping so I wasn't "wasting time" being on the road. both times were saturday night i believe and we pick up I95 right at Philly. so that's our preference, sometime late afternoon into the evening to arrive late morning. (plus if you're up for it, you could hit a park that afternoon/night rather than it being a wasted park day. but we're still 'young and stupid' and can do stuff like that )

so it depends on the dynamic of you and the family. SIL did the same thing as she had small kids and it was much nicer if they slept through the majority of the trip overnight BIL, however, the small kids kept quiet with the DVD player and love staying in hotels, so they did the split trip the last time they drove and everyone was happy. on the weekends I don't think traffic is as bad anywhere as rush hour during the week so you should be fine with what works for you.

Thank you Miz! I think we are finalizing this as leaving NNJ at 12am Sat morning, and driving straight into Savannah (arriving around 3pm) and taking 95S the entire way.

Driving back, will be rougher. We are doing it in one day, no overnight stops if it can be avoided. Having 4 adults in the car will make things easier, but one gets motion sick if they are in the front, one can't drive at night, and one gets very sleepy after 1-2 hours... so it looks like I'll be the only reliable driver. Good thing I ran a limousine business for 14 years! LOL!

 

[Brook1099]

We are leaving in two weeks and will leave at 2am stay on 95 and should be in savannah ga, traffic pending around 2-3 pm. We have left this time numerous trips an works the best for us. We have driven straight thru before and I do not like being on 1-4 after no sleep at all.