How to hurry

On long road trips, not hauling the TT, my wife and I will swap driving about every 2-3 hours. We will stop at a Holiday Inn Express along the way by around 5-6 pm. Get some dinner shower and relax in the room for a bit and go to sleep. We only bring in a single little travel bag to get thru the change of clothes and toiletries for each of us.

We will get up at around 5 am and brew up the coffee that comes in the room and get ready to go and usually out by 5:30am.

Repeat until we get to our destination.. Have only stuck to the West coast doing this, but in my single, younger days, I would do coast to coast trips driving an E250 Van and 16' utility trailer by myself in around 4 days...

But that was a long time ago and I was getting paid to do it!

Anyway, just gotta do whatever works best for you in the end.

Good luck!

Mitch

RickLIght wrote:
...The kicker is no RV, camping, or time for (extended) fun. Neither are we as young as when we did those all night crazy road trips...

Depending on your time frame, if you need to make the trip quick and fast with no frills involved, then your best approach is to switch off drivers. When one sleeps, the other drives.

About a year ago my wife and I did a fast 2 day trip from central Indiana to Kansas City, Missouri. We only had Saturday and Sunday. No trailer, no frills. We left early Saturday morning and drove straight through by trading off. We met our mission, (which took a whole 15 minutes), and turned right around and headed back to Indianapolis. We did stay the night in a motel, and got an early start Sunday morning.

We both got back to work Monday morning and were completely wiped out!

Yes, getting older just plain sucks. Not near the energy or stamina like we use to have. Long gone are the marathon road trips. So this fast 2 day turn around was a real killer for us.

In order to do it, you have to keep your focus! Don't think about how tired you may be, or how long the trip is. Look at the clock and look at the odometer in your vehicle and look at 30 minute increments. Let's see, at 70 mph, in 30 minutes, I should travel 35 miles. Once you reach the 35 miles, set the goal again and keep driving. When you feel tired, switch drivers and keep pushing.

It will all be over fast and furious... THEN you can collapse!

I not sure about what you mean by not driving long hours, unless you plan to fly or ride the greyhound driving long hours is the only way. We were late getting off and had resevations in Yosemite. We left North Florida and were in California (Panamint Valley) in 4 days and in Yosemite in 4 1/2 days.

We did it by being on the road at 7 AM at the latest, minimizing stops, no long lunch breaks, and driving until 8 PM. You gain an hour driving west for each time zone so we were on the road 14 hours a day. Eat in the car. We were pulling a popup and so we couldn't drive 75 mph.

Day 1 left N FL, made it to east of Dallas on I-20.
Day 2 Made it to just across the NM border
Day 3 Kingman AZ
Day 4 Panamint Valley CA

There is no other way.

You need to pick an expeditious and as close to direct route as you can find too. No following the Interstates and you cannot afford to be caught on minor highways with lots of stop lights either. We were familiar with the route ahead of time.

For us there are direct routes east to west. For you cutting diagonally across the country it will be much harder.

You will arrive exhausted.

I-75
I-40
I-25
I-70 or I-90

You haven't said what your time frame is for completing this trip, or what you'll be driving.