Harrisburg PA to Albany NY

Yep...81 to 88 was the best for me. 88 was smooth enough and when it wasn't the traffic was light enough for me to travel in the left lane. Only got one nasty horn honk from a trucker that passed me on my right.

They are doing road repair on 81 both directions and so sections are one lane with traffic backed up for miles. And it took me almost an hour to get out of Harrisburg (rush hour). I made it just shy of Binghampton, parked at Flying J. At least the road surface was fine! Oh...while driving today there were about 10-12 (in batches of 2-4) small black SUV's with white license plates and blue & red flashing lights in back windows and sirens blaring and going 90 mph north on 81. No accidents. Extremely rare siting of something official. Secret police anyone?

I-87 itself is not bad at all in terms of road surface. There is some traffic, of course, at times.

I-84 in NY state, at least westbound, was one of the roughest highways I can recall travelling over with my RV.

I'm with Dutch; my preferred route would be I-81 to I-88 as well. The segment of I-90 bewteen I-88 and I-87N is free to travel (you still need to collect a card and turn it in again, if you don't have have EZ-Pass, but there's no associated fee). You can follow either I-90 or I-87 a few miles in the "wrong" direction to get to Shodack Island from the Albany area without much difficulty if you head up I-88.

OK...definitely will avoid 78. Is there anything else objectionable about 87 other than $$$? It would be a bit shorter plus there is a SP just south of Albany, right off 87, that I like to camp at.

I'm with Dutch! From NH we head to Albany area, take 88 to Binghamton, then 81 south. Taking 87 south from Albany is $$$. Then 78 west (at least 2 years ago...) was TERRIBLE! Had to reduce speed to 45 just to keep from shaking the rig apart. Potholes, broken road surface, rough expansion joints. Unless someone has a more current report on I-78 I'd still avoid it!

I prefer I-81 to I-88 to I-90, although that will bring you in a few miles north of the Albany I-87/I-90 junction. I-88 is in pretty good shape now, with just a few relatively short sections of right lane kidney killer bumps. Running in the left lane as traffic allows minimizes that.