Florida to Upstate NY (Saratoga Springs)
2017 22 Ft. Class C Ford E-350 Super Duty Triton V10 flat towing Ford Fiesta (2600 lbs). About 10 MPG in Florida (flat elevation) I-95 to I-87 Eastern Seaboard Route is flat elevation but crowded a...
Forum Discussion
jplante4 wrote:Dutch_12078 wrote:
Surprisingly, the difference in elevation between the I-95/I-26 split in SC and our upstate NY cottage is exactly the same no matter which route we take! The ups and downs must even out either way somewhere along the way to end up at the same elevation... ;)
Well of course. If you start at sea level and end up at sea level, you didn't climb at all :)
What I meant was the amount of time you spend going uphill at 35 mph is greater than the amount of time you spend coasting downhill at 55-65 mph. This is a classic problem I give to my flying students to get them to think about how a headwind effects a flight.
You're also burning considerably less gas to fight air resistance climbing the hill at 35 mph than you would burn to fight air resistance on the flat at 60 mph. (Not less gas total, but less that is consumed by air resistance). Motorhomes are not aerodynamic, so this is not a consideration that can be neglected if you want to predict at all accurate numbers.
Then one would also have to compare gas prices along the I-81 corridor vs. I-95, and....
In the end, if the cost of travel were the primary consideration, it's pretty hard to beat JetBlue or some of the other airlines. (I just checked--$145 from Albany to Orlando or vice-versa on some days in July).
