Drive from Boston to Hilton Head

We are heading to Hilton Head for school vacation in April and traveling with two teenagers. My DH wants to drive straight through and leave at 11 pm. Has anyone attempted this drive from the Boston area without stopping for the night? We would split the driving time between us.

mrsc said:

We are heading to Hilton Head for school vacation in April and traveling with two teenagers. My DH wants to drive straight through and leave at 11 pm. Has anyone attempted this drive from the Boston area without stopping for the night? We would split the driving time between us.

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15.5 hours, if it were me, I would say stop and spend a night somewhere. Say 10.5 hrs and 5 hrs (North Carolina). On arriving from a straight-through drive, you'll not want to do anything for two days, and that might be far worse. Leave a day early if possible so as not to cut the trip short.

Are you travelling on the Fri/Saturday before Easter?

There is a section on 95 between DC and Richmond that can be an absolute parking lot any time but especially holiday weekends and summer weekends. I would add a minimum of 2 hrs to the predicated drive time for holiday traffic. I've been stuck in it and heard from numerous NY/NJ vacationers making their way to Disney and other Florida destinations for the week. HHI seems way more popular with the Ohio crowd than the East Coasters. We are starting in MD but have learned not to go through that stretch of 95 after 5 in the morning during holiday weekends.

Doing it on a random Tuesday is very different than doing it on a holiday weekend. I still would probably recommend breaking it up even on a random Tuesday.

mrsc said:

We are heading to Hilton Head for school vacation in April and traveling with two teenagers. My DH wants to drive straight through and leave at 11 pm. Has anyone attempted this drive from the Boston area without stopping for the night? We would split the driving time between us.

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Probably. But if asked, they wouldn't attempt it again.

I agree with above posters about driving straight through. Also, no chance it takes 15.5 hours. Think 20 or 25 with traffic from about Baltimore to Rocky Mount, NC on 95. It could take you ten hours to get from Baltimore to Rocky Mount on a holiday weekend.

I would do something radical like going all the way west to 81 via 84 and coming down to Harrisburg where you can get 15. Take 15 to route 29 in Gainsville, VA and follow 29 all the way to Interstate 77 north of Charlotte. Take 77 to 26 to 95. You will cut off all of the crazy traffic.

Having said that, you need to break it up into two days.

You could also go south to Baltimore and then take route 301 across the Potomac River Bridge dropping you off 30 miles southeast of Fredericksburg in Virginia. You could get back on 95 near Richmond. You can also just take 85 in Petersburg to 40 and then back to 95. I've done the trip from the DC area to Hilton Head about ten times and it never goes the way I plan. Traffic is a bear.

JetBlue flies from Boston to Charleston. You may want to price that out.

Thank you for your replies. I have checked airfares and because it is school vacation week the rates are high. Massachusetts school vacation week is the third week of April so it does not coincide with Easter.

We have a Saturday check in..so we will need to leave on Friday.

Have you thought about taking Amtrak to Savannah (about an hour away) ? Charleston is about 2 hours, I think.

You take the regular train from Bos-NY and then transfer to the sleeper train.

Go to www.amtrak.com for prices and availability - if any left. You can call Amtrak, too. 1 800 872 7245.

I take this train at least yearly.

Late edit: I just took a look. Yikes ! The price is about double for this week. I'm not sure if they'll let 4 people in the bedroom suite.
If you have Amtrak rewards points, it's cheaper.


B

I would suggest leaving at 2AM instead of 11PM try to sleep a few hours before you leave. IMO a few hours sleep is better than none. We drive to Myrtle Beach (12 hours from us). We have thought about driving thru the night but I think I am a safer driver if I have slept a few hours (we leave at 4AM).
Enjoy your trip!

We drove from Boston to South of Washington in 7 hours. Washington to HHI is about 9 hours give or take with stopping for gas.

tschwa2 said:

Are you travelling on the Fri/Saturday before Easter?

There is a section on 95 between DC and Richmond that can be an absolute parking lot any time but especially holiday weekends and summer weekends. I would add a minimum of 2 hrs to the predicated drive time for holiday traffic. I've been stuck in it and heard from numerous NY/NJ vacationers making their way to Disney and other Florida destinations for the week. HHI seems way more popular with the Ohio crowd than the East Coasters. We are starting in MD but have learned not to go through that stretch of 95 after 5 in the morning during holiday weekends.

Doing it on a random Tuesday is very different than doing it on a holiday weekend. I still would probably recommend breaking it up even on a random Tuesday.

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I agree. We drove from NY to Williamsburg last summer and 95 in VA was a parking lot. It added 3 hrs to the trip. It was a nightmare with 4 kids. Coming home, we left at 6am and arrived home in 6 hrs! No traffic anywhere.

A colleague of mine lost his son and daughter-in-law because they thought they could drive through the night, leaving after work, to get to a wedding. One of them apparently fell asleep at the wheel and they both died. Better to spend the night in a hotel or find alternate transportation.

When we're only staying a week we fly. Two weeks or longer we drive via the Mass Pike -> 84S -> 84W CT -> 81S PA -> 77S VA -> 26E SC -> 95S SC -> 278E, and stop overnight along 81S in either Winchester or Harrisonburg VA. It takes about 18 hours, roughly the same amount of time as 95S considering traffic. I wouldn't want to go through any of the mountains when it's dark, and the only traffic bottlenecks we've encountered have been at the tail end 95S-278E at 2-4 in the afternoon.

Some of our guests have driven straight through either that route or 95S leaving around midnight after getting six hours of sleep, and they've only been held up at the same tail end bottleneck. We do notice that they're dragging for the first day and a half or so after getting there, and then they have to cut short the last day in order to get some sleep before the return trip.

Susan's route is the way I would go. My only change would be to take State route 15 in Pennsylvania to 29 in Virginia through Charlottesville, Lynchburg, and Danville then connect with 77 around Greensboro. There are a lot more places to stop using this route and gas stations are on the highway as opposed to having to exit.

Thanks, Matt! I printed that for us to try it next time.

Susan,
you can wave to me as you pass Leesburg, VA on route 15 next time you make that trip.

Every time I pass through Leesburg, I think of the song The Lee's of Old Virginia from the musical 1776.

We drive the I-95 corridor from Boston to southeast Florida A LOT.

I agree with prior posts that a one-night stay over is probably a good idea since you'll be dealing with the Boston, NYC, and Washington DC metro areas all in one day and that will be exhausting.

If I were going to make this trip, I'd probably find a place in Fayetteville NC, which looks about 11.5 to 12 hours. That's a long day in a car.

I think I would leave at 5:30 a.m. from Boston so that I'd be driving through metro NYC around 10:00 a.m. and then driving through Washington DC area around 2 - 3 p.m. and getting to Fayetteville around 6 or 7 p.m. Most of this driving will be during the daylight, which helps with staying awake and also for safety.

I'd get up the next morning, have a nice breakfast, get on the road by 9-10 a.m. and get to HHI around 2 or 3.

If your DH is insistent on doing this trip in one day (and it's possible) (we driven from Southeast Florida to NYC in 19+ hours several times without staying over night), then I would suggest:

- try to do as much of your driving in the daylight, so leaving at 11:00 p.m. is bad idea. That's many many hours in the dark.

- try to minimize rest breaks and maximum each stop by getting gas, food, and bathroom break all in one stop. We try to not stop every often (once every 3 or 4 hours).

- use highway rest areas whenever possible. Sometimes those off highway stops can take a lot of time because the facilities are not immediately off the highway. Sometimes when we get off the highway and the services aren't immediately visible, I'll jump right back on the highway.

- take turns driving even if you don't feel tried. The spouse that isn't driving can get bored quickly and sharing driving will keep both spouses more alert.

- we pack a small cooler for drinks, sandwiches, and snacks which minimizes the need to stop for these items. Stopping is your enemy....

The checkered flag is ready...

Ann-Marie said:

We drove from Boston to South of Washington in 7 hours.

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You should perhaps consider a career in NASCAR! That's at least 500 miles and by my math, an average of nearly 65 m.p.h., including time parked and immobile during fuel and pit stops.

My late Dad (retired from several decades in State Police) used to take at least 9 hours to drive the 500 miles from the Boston outskirts to Lorton, Virginia, just south of Washington.
Then again, he always obeyed the speed limits.

We are leisure travelers. I would take 3 full days days to make that drive!!!