Driving time

[Tom_Barb]

When traveling, how many hours per day do you drive before you lay up for a rest period?

[J-Rooster]

Tom, since I retired, I drive 4 hours and sometimes 5 at the max! Being a retired OTR Trucker I don't ever want to driver 10 hours again.

[doc_brown]

Each summer I travel from Los Angeles to College Park, MD. I'm usually in a hurry so I do 400-600 miles per day stopping every 2 hours. The return trip is 300 miles per day.

[Rwake901]

fourmat wrote:
about 8 hours I have had enough

X 2

[dieharder]

Me, I only get to take off for 2 weeks at a time, so wherever I'm going, I get there. If it's a vacation south, I'll get there with one overnight (Myrtle Beach) or, in the case of Florida, 2. I have no problem with 12 hours on the road, especially on the interstate.

[retiredtraveler]

I like 4-5 hours. Have done more but that is what I like. We are generally on the road at 8:30-9 so arrive 2-3 PM.

[revump]

Because we are retired and full-time, each day is different. We try not to put ourselves on a strict schedule. It is always good to stop for an afternoon nap

[Mr_Mark1]

As a lot of people have mentioned, it depends. Generally, we like to start at about 10:00-10:30 AM and driving until about 5:00 PM. We'll stop for lunch for 30 min. to an hour.

Currently, we are on a 2,500 mile trip trying to make it in 8 days...... we're doing good. For the first time, I drove 400 miles in one day. When the speed limit is 80 mph in Texas, I drive 65 mph, occasionally, going up to 70 mph.

We don't like to arrive at a campground in the dark, so, since it is summer, that's not a problem. In 8.5 yrs. of RVing, we've only arrived at night maybe 3 times. Things are just different at night at a RV park. Tree limbs and rocks seem a whole lot bigger! LOL!

MM.

[CG_Dawson]

We're retired and normally plan on around 300mi before we get off the road. if we're traveling we also plan on only being on the road for two days then off for one.

[Tom_Barb]

Now day we take 5 days from Oak Harbor Wa. to Walton NY. Days long gone, I've don't it in 50 hours. those days are long gone. These days we are on the road by daylight, off the road by dark. miles in one day, who cares.

[Goldencrazy]

We are gradually slowing down. From doing a 12 mile trip in 24 hrs to now we do about 400 miles a day in about 7 hrs. We try to fill up with fuel-gas-at the end of the day so the next day our stops are rest areas to walk the dogs and stretch. Reducing our speed to about 60-65 depending on road conditions and getting off the road when we are tired even if it means 2pm is a work in progress. I think trading up to larger motorhomes with more living comfort makes it easier to drive less. Adding a couple of days to a long trip is not usually a problem. We used to do WI to Los Angles in 4-5 days. Now we are doing it in 6-7 days. Gee do you think age could be a factor?

[tatest]

My driving days have run 5 to 22 hours, depending on the need to get where by when. There are diminishing returns. A five hour trip might be a full five hours of driving, at least four and a half. When it gets up to 18-22 hours, I more often lose 2-3 hours on breaks for meals and other refreshment.

A really long driving day takes some preparation, and doesn't work for consecutive days, so I might even delay the start of such a trip (or any trip longer than 10 hours) by a day to get ready, and have several times simply chosen to abandon the trip and the nearest major airport and fly to my destination (20 hour drive = 3 hour flight).

For consecutive travel days on a touring road trip, I try to limit my camp to camp time (when RVing) to 8 hours, and might be 3-6 hours actually moving. When using hotels, I might increase the length of the travel day to 10-14 hours, 8-12 of it actually moving.

Or are you asking about something else. I go at most three hours between rest breaks, sometimes two hours, but those breaks will be 5-15 minutes. When pushing my driving day beyond 10 hours, one of those breaks might include a 30 minute nap.

In case talking about hotels/motels raises a question of relevance, when going for maximum distance in minimum time, I do sometimes park the RV and stay at a hotel, it saves about two hours compared to going in and out of a campground. One could also Wallydock. Long trips abandoned to air travel, none of those were RV, rather for medical care (where comfort of patient during travel can matter) to get someplace for a family event like a funeral (six in the last four years).

[Pass42]

As others have said... depends... If we are going from upstate NY (home) to Myrtle Beach, SC (890 miles) we do it in 2 days, one night at a Pilot/Flying J
I do all of the driving, DW does the navigating.. we don't normally do more than 6 - 8 hours max........

[msmith1199]

Depends on how far you need to go. I once did two 700 mile days in a row. Left central California on a Thursday evening after work and put in a few hundred miles that day. Then did the two 700 mile days on Friday and Saturday, and then on Sunday did the last few hundred miles into Oshkosh Wisconsin for the Airshow. Did four days at the air show and then took about 9 days driving back to California.

[Cloud_Dancer]

We don't do any more random sight-seeing outings. We usually are on the way to a destination. We don't mind getting up early, eat a quick breakfast and hit the road at 7:30 to 8:00 o'clock. We'll stop about every 2 to 3 hours to stretch and/or walk the little dogs. We eat from our kitchen,...unless we target a certain restaurant where we know there's good food. We'll do a quick overnight stop for sleeping, usually a Walmart. And, we get on the road early the next day. We enjoy the convenience of being self-contained. Our big motorhome is comfortable to drive. We avoid stressful situations, if possible.