How long do you drive/tow in a day?

[akcorr]

Just wondering how long you all drive in a day? My wife and I leaning towards a hard fast rule of 8 hours a day at the most.

[ksbowman]

When we go on long trips like Florida I try to do 10 hour days. Usually that is 2 ten hour days and then the last is about 7-8 hours. I have done a marathon of 16 1/2 hours once but, swear that won't happen again.

[StirCrazy]

it all depends where I am heading. if I am just driving to the lake back home to go camping then I'll do a 10 hour day, I have done up to 15, but thats way to long. If I am on a long trip with multiple days of driving to get there then I shoot for about 8 to 10 hours the first day and about 6 hours of driving the following days. that varries a bit depending on where I am stopping but I generaly keep it to 6 hours or less on the following days.


Steve

[mgirardo]

We are not retired, both kids are still home (19 & 17). When we towed our HTT, we usually maxed out at about 400 miles a day. We did have one trip where we needed to get home and did 600 miles one day. When we had the motorhome, there were several times we would travel about 800 miles a day. One time, driving 900 miles.

-Michael

[Reisender]

valhalla360 wrote:

Reisender wrote:
I can see from the reply’s that many here won’t have a problem adapting to RVing with an EV 1/2 ton towing a suitable trailer. Many seem laid back with their travels. And those only travelling a few hundred kilometers a day wouldn’t even have to stop to charge. Very occasionally we dead head 500 or 600 kilometers or maybe a little more. But most of the time we are just touring and enjoying the various parks and attractions. We would love to take a month and take the ocean side route from Vancouver to San Diego again. Maybe in a couple or three years.

250-300mile range in a very aerodynamically slippery small car vs a brick is going to cap the range at around 100miles or less.

Scale that up to a truck where it might have a 200kwh battery bank to get 100 mile range towing and it starts becoming a problem. With a small trailer on a 30amp site, you might have 1-2kw available for charging...that's 100-200hr to charge at the campground. Even if you talk your way into an 18ft trailer in a 50amp site and pull 9kw, it's still 22hr, so back to back driving days become problematic. You could go into a fast charge station but most aren't set up to accommodate trailers.

EV-RVs are still a long way off.

Hard to say. My guess is a cybertruck will have around 350 to 400 kilometres of towing range pulling a 24 trailer. For those like us and obviously many others that tour camp that would be fine. We rarely just stay one night at a camp ground. So charging at a camp ground would work. And we are noticing more of both DC fast chargers and Tesla Superchargers with one or two stalls set up for trailer towing. It’ll work fine for us. Wife has a cybertruck on order. Have to wait and see if we get it. We are pretty far down the list. Probably a few years before they get to us. :). It’s all good.

People are already RV’ing with EV’s so it’s not a long ways off. It’s here. There are a couple model ‘X s pulling rear drops in our area. I’ve talked to one of them. They toured Vancouver island last summer for 5 weeks. They had no issues. Once the Cybertruck is out it will have a larger impact.

Cheers.

[Timmo_]

BarabooBob wrote:
Why not keep it civil?....

Amen! It seems that some people are just plain ornery and snap at nice folks, just like a junkyard dog.

[valhalla360]

Reisender wrote:
I can see from the reply’s that many here won’t have a problem adapting to RVing with an EV 1/2 ton towing a suitable trailer. Many seem laid back with their travels. And those only travelling a few hundred kilometers a day wouldn’t even have to stop to charge. Very occasionally we dead head 500 or 600 kilometers or maybe a little more. But most of the time we are just touring and enjoying the various parks and attractions. We would love to take a month and take the ocean side route from Vancouver to San Diego again. Maybe in a couple or three years.

250-300mile range in a very aerodynamically slippery small car vs a brick is going to cap the range at around 100miles or less.

Scale that up to a truck where it might have a 200kwh battery bank to get 100 mile range towing and it starts becoming a problem. With a small trailer on a 30amp site, you might have 1-2kw available for charging...that's 100-200hr to charge at the campground. Even if you talk your way into an 18ft trailer in a 50amp site and pull 9kw, it's still 22hr, so back to back driving days become problematic. You could go into a fast charge station but most aren't set up to accommodate trailers.

EV-RVs are still a long way off.

[ktmrfs]

JRscooby wrote:

ktmrfs wrote:

JRscooby wrote:
I always wonder about what I read on threads like this; Somebody drives a desk every day, then starts vacation thinks it's safe to drive 600+ miles
A professional starts getting ready to go. 14 hours later, he's done. It is against the law for him to drive. And out of that 14, only 11 can be driving.

well, DW can also drive and does share driving time if needed.

That said, 600 miles towing is longer than we have ever done. But we quite often do a 800 mile trip in one day, sharing driving. But that trip non towing is not as tiring as a 400 mile towing trip.

I understand the safety rules that professionals live by do not apply to RVers. But if a pro is in the truck, will take over the driving she must swear that she spent 10 hours in the sleeper while you are driving.

between us, whomever is not driving is sleeping in the passenger seat...... But I'm sure that isn't good enough for you, But we'd get carsick sleeping in the trailer (besides being illegal)

If either of us feels the least bit tired, we pull over for a while.

[justinhscott]

I did a 976 mile day a few weeks ago. A couple hours too much but I work full time in the cold north and wanted badly to be in Florida. Typically our FL runs involve at least one 15-16 hour day each way.

[JRscooby]

ferndaleflyer wrote:
You know Scooby I don't give a rats a$$ what a "professional" driver does. I know how many miles I have driven, how many accidents I have had, how many tickets I have had, and how many times I have ducked the professionals in my life....I think I am good to go.

Well I have made the argument for decades as a adult I should be able to decide for myself when I was tired. The OP posted what I took to be a question what is a reasonable distance/time to travel in a day. Some who seam to have grown up in Lake Woebegon, where all the children are above average, are advocating times and distances that are likely unsafe. Most times they will get away with it. And if they don't it will be because somebody else did something stupid, it can't be my fault. But I am sure that the dad that works all day Friday, loads wife and kids to drive for hours will have less of a chance of missing the other guy. It is not always a fall asleep. Maybe your tired eyes take a little too long checking the right mirror, don't notice the kid on the left texting.
I don't think we should be forced to follow log regulations, but it sure don't hurt to know what the people that studied it have determined what the limits are.

Last Oct we took about a 3500 mile trip. Never drove more than 300 in a day. Drive a day, camp and cook for a day, sightsee a day, then travel again
As to "I have to drive woofty hours to get to vacation". More than once, when somebody is asked about their first trip to say NYC, they talk about the art galleries, museums and theaters. You ask them to compare to the art galleries, museums and theaters in home town, O, we never go to those. RVers are no different.

[Reisender]

I can see from the reply’s that many here won’t have a problem adapting to RVing with an EV 1/2 ton towing a suitable trailer. Many seem laid back with their travels. And those only travelling a few hundred kilometers a day wouldn’t even have to stop to charge. Very occasionally we dead head 500 or 600 kilometers or maybe a little more. But most of the time we are just touring and enjoying the various parks and attractions. We would love to take a month and take the ocean side route from Vancouver to San Diego again. Maybe in a couple or three years.

[campigloo]

We have two distance records. One about 25 miles and one 700+. Now that we have time, 200 or until we get tired is about it.

[Lwiddis]

“You know Scooby I don't give a rats a$$ what a "professional" driver does.”

How does contribute to the conversation? No need to be nasty.

[BarabooBob]

Why not keep it civil?

My wife and I leave southwestern Wisconsin at 3:00am (central time) and drive to the Badlands on our first day. That is a 650 mile day. We get to the campground at 3:00pm (mtn time) We stop every 3 hours to walk around for 10 minutes. We do it because we want to get to the Badlands on our first day. On the way home, we travel shorter days. While we are on the road, most days are 300 miles.

[ferndaleflyer]

You know Scooby I don't give a rats a$$ what a "professional" driver does. I know how many miles I have driven, how many accidents I have had, how many tickets I have had, and how many times I have ducked the professionals in my life....I think I am good to go.

[JRscooby]

ktmrfs wrote:

JRscooby wrote:
I always wonder about what I read on threads like this; Somebody drives a desk every day, then starts vacation thinks it's safe to drive 600+ miles
A professional starts getting ready to go. 14 hours later, he's done. It is against the law for him to drive. And out of that 14, only 11 can be driving.

well, DW can also drive and does share driving time if needed.

That said, 600 miles towing is longer than we have ever done. But we quite often do a 800 mile trip in one day, sharing driving. But that trip non towing is not as tiring as a 400 mile towing trip.

I understand the safety rules that professionals live by do not apply to RVers. But if a pro is in the truck, will take over the driving she must swear that she spent 10 hours in the sleeper while you are driving.