Hancock, MD to Winchester, VA

Take it from a local... avoid I 81 at all costs. There are way too many accidents on 81. Just last week there was a 44 car/truck pile up due to a sudden snow squall. People drive way to fast and never slow down for the road conditions. Now that there are three lanes from Maryland until Martinsburg, there are wrecks daily. Take the scenic route and enjoy your drive.

522 is a good road, scenic, no big hills or major curves, as KD4UPL said it changes from a good 2 lane to a very good 4 lane, Berkley Springs will be the only bottle neck, we use 522 all the time when going to Ohio or western Pa.

We always take 522. It's shorter and a nicer drive. No steep hills or sudden curves. Either route is good though.

522 is 2 lane in WV and 4 lane in VA. It's a good road. Not an interstate but it's regularly used by lots of trucks. At least it was back when I was trucking. I took 522 to Hancock all the time; it's much shorter than interstate. I think Berkley Springs may have banned trucks in town so that would have stopped the truck traffic.
That would be your one bottleneck; 522 goes right thru the middle of scenic Berkley Springs. It's a cool little town with some old historic buildings. I always enjoyed the route when I was driving 18 wheeler thru there.

If you don't get any good responses you can goto GOOGLE MAPS and do the city view and just move down each of the routes at eye level and look for yourself for things that you are asking about.

We do this alot on some roads as well as appearance of camp grounds...

They have photographed almost everywhere you can go these days...

Roy Ken