You have to cross the Appalachians somewhere. Home was Detroit, duty station was MB, late 60s before most of the Interstate highways. I had a 40 HP car weighing about 2400 poinds loaded withbride and our worldly goods, so needed the easy way over the mountains.
My choice was the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Breezewood, then south across the Piedmont through Hagerstown to pick up US-301 on the coastal plain. Then 301 to 501, 501 to the beach. Route of 301 was roughly that of I-95, but you don't want to get to that much north of Richmond. Problem is what has happened to the rural highways I used to use. Interstate system has turned northern Virginia into one big suburb, and the highways all want to take you to DC.
When they finished I-75 as far south as Chattanooga, I switched to that, but then it meant crossing the mountains on the slow winding two lanes. Today, there are two more places to cross by superhighway. I-40 is a short but busy and winding section from Eastern Tennessee into Ashville, the other is I-77 through West Virginia. I've driven them both since the beginning of this century, prefer the West Virgina drive, but have only done it in midsize sedans with great power to weight ratios.
Where do you go from there? Both 77 and I-26 (down from I-40) take you across the Piedmont to Charlotte. I like US-74 out of Charlotte pick up 501 out of Laurinburg, or go to Whiteville for BBQ then south on 701 to Conway. Old familiar roads, we would drive day trips to Charlotte to shop.
Keeping to Interstates, I-77 continues through the Piedmont to Columbia, the I-20 across to Florence and the Coastal Plain, from which it is now all fourlane divided through Marion and Conway to the beach.
My last time to MB I used I-64 where it split from I-77, but I was going first to Charlottesville, Jamestown, the Outer Banks, then taking US-17 into Myrtle Beach. That would be way out of your way. It was five days from dropping my brother off at DTW so he could fly to his snowbird house in Florida, getting to MB. Interesting stops included Monticello, the Jamestown settlement site, the historical reenactment site, Williamsburg, National Monument in Kittyhawk. We could have visited USS North Carolina in Wilmington but had already done that.
Detroit to MB is roughly a day and ahalf to two days drive by any route. Any route you take has enough to see and do on the way that it can easily use up a week if you try to do them all and know where to look. Places we've visted between Detroit and MB have included Gettysburg, Harpers Ferry, Appomattox, DC, Gatlinburg, Lookout Mountain, GSMNP and sections of the Blue Ridge Parkway. But these are on different routes of the many possible, and we didn't visit them all on one trip. What to do on way thus depends on how much time you want to allow for that part of the trip, and the route you take might depend on what you want to visit. Like that little BBQ place in Whiteville I've been visiting from time to time over the past 45 years.
Tom Test
Itasca Spirit 29B
