If you choose Virginia Beach, and the nearby Nauticus Museum, you're only a short drive up I-64 to the Colonial Parkway. At one end is Jamestown, the other end is Yorktown and between the two is Colonial Williamsburg. The "Historic Triangle". Then continue NW on I-64 to Charlottesville to visit Thomas Jefferson's home at Monticello, then on to I-81 South to Knoxville. You'll be a scholar of early American History and you've avoided the traffic in both Baltimore and Washington, DC. That's worth the few extra miles all by itself. :)