How far do you travel in a day?

We are looking at our first long trip ( 900 miles). Usually, we only travel a couple of hours from home so I'm not sure how many miles I should be looking at per day. Any suggestions.

If you're motivated, you can do 900 miles in a day. I've done it a few times, but it was a long day with only a stop for fuel, a couple meals and bathroom breaks. Depending on the route, you can do 300 miles a day and enjoy the scenery and still make good progress. That's assuming about 60-65mph (5 hours of driving). With 3 young boys, it's hard to get 250 miles in without major disruption in the back seat. If I drive at night when they sleep, I can usually make up some mileage, but it comes with a penalty of sleep deprevation. I've only done the 900 mile days alone and when my 1st son was 6 months old. He didn't complain much then and we needed to get from home in Nevada to Iowa for family funeral that happened a week after Sept 11, 2001. Most of the airports were still jacked up so we hooked up the old trailer and off we went.

When we are on a trip, we plan on driving between 250-300 miles per day. We normally leave the last campground around 9 a.m. and travel until around 3 p.m. We then have plenty of time to set up at the new campsite and take a tour of the area before dark. Then if we need more time exploring, we spend another day at that campsite.

It also depends on how long you want to spend at your final destination. Is 900 miles round trip or one way ?

If its round trip then you could do the 450 miles easy and make it the first day and have more time where your going.

When me and my wife went to Maine we only had one week to stay and see as much as possible. We left Ga at 8am one morning and crossed the Maine state line at 8am the next morning. We drove all day and all night. up there and back, but we got to see a ton of stuff the short time we were there. Then did the same thing to get back home. That was in the green ford truck I have pictured in the other posts about old campers. We were also a lot younger with no kids.

Normally, 250-350 miles per day. We usually avoid freeways, better way to see Americana, and we are definitely off the beaten paths. If we press, use the freeways 500-600 is not uncommon. Being retired is a factor. When I worked I usually stayed within 300 miles of home. Good luck and happy traveling!

I find the older I get, the less I can drive each day. Right now about 350 miles is my limit. In my younger days, a 24 hour drive straight through to Florida was easy.

John

Thanks for the information. The 900 miles is one way from our home to Hartland, New Brunswick. The information you provided is pretty much the same as I thought - 250 to 300 miles a day.

I prefer to stay under 350 miles per day. Sometimes my mileage depends on how far it is to the next campground. I've done 425 miles in one day but that was the exception. My wife and I like to get to an RV park before 3:00 PM. That give us enought time to get setup, relax, and perhaps explore the nearest town. We usually drive on interstate highways at 62 MPH.
This has probably been mentioned before but it's worth posting it again. Trailer tires are rated for a top speed of 65 MPH. Sustained driving above this speed causes excess heat to build up which weakens and degrades the tire and can cause blowouts.

I really never understood the bit about "getting there is half the fun", until we got our wildcat. Now, on a long trip (>500 miles), we sometimes make less than 200 miles in a day. Like someone else said, we avoid the interstates, and brake for just about anything. We too, like to get to our next stop before dark to set up for the night, and we don't leave out too early the next day.

Interesting question and one I've been thinking much about the last week.

I'm planning a trip from WV to Utah with most days spent in the mountains of Colorado. Its 1300 miles one way until our first destination near Colorado Springs. We have 14 -15 days for the entire trip. I plan on driving around 450 to 500 miles the first two days and the remaining 300 to 400 on the third day. All of this will be flat land by interstate.

After arriving in Colorado Springs, the next 8 -9 days will be at a much slower pace as we make our way to Moab, Utah and back through southern Colorado. If Colorado is as beautiful as some of the pics in Scottz's photo's, we may not even make it to Moab.

We travel between 350 and 400 miles a day. It also depends on where you are traveling too, sometimes there maybe great distances between towns and campgrounds. So, you will have to find out what is comfortable for you and the first out on a long trip take your time. Good luck and have fun.

Our travel is similar to most that have posted here. We really follow that of bkeager pretty well. A lot of variables enter into the travel day. Initial day out we generally travel a longer distance, as it is a frequently traveled road and we are fresh. Then we cut back on the miles. We enjoy seeing the non interstate America and may find ourselves stopping enough in a day that our total miles for the day are not many.

Last fall, in traveling from Toronto to Riviere-du-Loup (in route to the Gaspe), we encountered quite a bit of rough road and construction. This slowed us some as we had reduced speed. Also a lot of neat towns along the way and we stopped frequently to take pictures, etc. We were 2 days from west of Toronto to Riviere-du-Loup.

Enjoy your trip

About the same here. I have done just over 700 in a day with the cat due to dad needing me to help him the next morning. But what you are going to find is that pulling any trailer but especially a 30' sail is stressful and it takes alot out of you.

The biggest thing to remember is to have fun. Make sure you plan at least 2 extra days in your trip for the unexpected and if you don't need them, you can spend more time at one of your stops.

It doesn't bother me at all to drive all night to make the 1300 mile trip to Ft. Lauderdale to see the in-laws in my pick-up, but with the Cat, it takes a full 2 days.

Like others, our travel days depend on the number of vaction days we have. This past summer hauling the Cat from Ontario to Walt Disney World, our days broke down like this;

Day 1: Home to Charlotte, NC - 924 miles
Day 2: Charlotte, NC to New Smyrna Beach, FL - 495 miles
Day 3: New Smyrna Beach, FL to WDW, FL - 75 miles

On our long trips, I like to get the longest driving day in first and have shorter days after that. We have been camping since the kids were 2 and 3 so now that they are 12 and 13, they are used to the travelling and actually enjoy the long drives. Returning home is never as much fun however!!

The most we've done in a day is 600 miles. For our family, eight hours is usually enough time sitting in the truck and that'll get us 400 miles.

This summer we did over 3,400 miles in 16 days since we only had the two weeks.

San Diego - Flagstaff, AZ - 513 miles

Flagstaff AZ - Bloomfield, NM (Nearest Chaco Canyon), stopped off at meteor crater in Wilson AZ and drove through the petrified forest. - 363 miles

Bloomfield, NM - Estes Park, CO (Rocky Mountain National Park), stopped off at Florisant Fossil Beds - 535 miles

Estes Park, CO - Cortez, CO (Mesa Verde National Park) - 516 miles

Cortez, CO - Camp Verde, AZ (national monuments) stopped off at Four Corners and took a detour to Monument Valley - 390 miles

Camp Verde, AZ to Youngtown, AZ (in laws) - 95 miles

Youngtown, AZ - San Diego - 369 miles

About 6 hours a day is it for us, and that's around 300 miles. Could be less if there is something we want to stop and see along the way. Today we drove about 4 or 4 1/2 hours... from Bay Saint Louis, MS to Vicksburg, MS. We're staying in Vicksburg tomorrow because heavy rain is predicted all day along our route. Friday the weather will be good, and we'll drive home - about 6 1/2 hours.

The farthest we travel in a day would be about 1150 miles when we're doing our Gulf Shores trip. That's with both of us taking turns driving & plenty of rest stops. Otherwise most of our camping has been within 300 miles from home.

Another factor, is when you need to be back home. An example is that we are retired, but still have a two to three month window to travel due to having someone stay at our home while we are gone. It would not be fun to come home to an empty house, so we have someone available to "house sit". This next trip will be around 10,000 miles and about two to three months. To see all we want to see, we will probably use all three months. If our "sitter" could stay longer, we would take longer. If you are still working, and have a two or three week window, then you might want to extend your day traveling to see as much as you can in the time available.

Used to do 400 - 500 miles per day. Now we limit ourselves to 300 to 350 miles per day. We use our TL Campground Navigator to search for CG's within those parameters as we travel.

Just gettin older, I guess.

Maxtor wrote:Another factor, is when you need to be back home. An example is that we are retired, but still have a two to three month window to travel due to having someone stay at our home while we are gone. It would not be fun to come home to an empty house, so we have someone available to "house sit". This next trip will be around 10,000 miles and about two to three months. To see all we want to see, we will probably use all three months. If our "sitter" could stay longer, we would take longer. If you are still working, and have a two or three week window, then you might want to extend your day traveling to see as much as you can in the time available.

I have another 25-30 years before I'm fortunate enough for this (retirement) to happen....

Retirement is great... It is just to bad most of us that are retired, are OLD.

Except for Oldelmer1,,, he is still a kid.

Maxtor wrote:
Except for Oldelmer1,,, he is still a kid.

I don't know, sometimes I feel pretty old. Especially when I have to shovel 24 inches of snow off our 75 foot long driveway, which is what we are suppose to get tomorrow.

Maxtor wrote:Retirement is great... It is just to bad most of us that are retired, are OLD.

Except for Oldelmer1,,, he is still a kid.

Maxtor:
I second that. "But you are only as old as you feel"

OH NO....Sometimes I feel 102.

Last yr we went from CHI to Moab. Drove to Kearney NE. 1st day little over 500. 2nd day to Denver Stayed 3 day and on to Moab. Day trip from Denver. We are making the trip again this yr. Co is beautiful but the desert also has somthing to offer. We only have 15 days to work with, so its hard and fast to get there then we take in as much as possible. When are going out? We leave IL 5/28 for CO.

For it's more about time than miles. I don't usually like to tow more than 6 hours behind the wheel. After that I'm starting to get a might tuckered out and needing to stop. That usually translates into about 350-400 miles depending on the traffic, weather, roads, etc.

We generally would shoot for something in the 200-250 mile range. Put driving profile into software and let it best guess where we should spend the night. This assumes we'd leave at 9am, stop every 2 hours for 15 minutes, and arrive around 2pm. It would pick a spot in the middle of nowhere and I'd break out the RV park books and find something close.

I think our shortest trip was Saint Marys Georgia to Jacksonville Florida. It was 58 miles from park to park.

Our longest runs were, probably, from Whitehorse Yukon Territory to Tok Alaska. They are 380 miles from park to park, and a really long day because of road conditions. Tip for this run (we've done the US to Alaska 2.5 round trips), pick out a big ol' Mothership towing a dingy, tuck yourself in about a quarter of a mile behind it, watch for brake lights and the dingy bouncing madly, that tells you when to slow down.

Cardinal_Bill wrote:Put driving profile into software and let it best guess where we should spend the night.

Hi Bill,
What software do you use?

I saw that Trailer Life is now offering software that you can map out your trip, and it will tell you all the CG's along the way with their ratings. Its $36.00.

Tom,

We use Microsoft Streets & Trips. Bought it years ago, it's a 2007 release, at either Sams or Costco for about $20. It's the basic version without the GPS included (which I think runs close to $100), although it picks up the WiFi and tries to locate us by that. Only mistake I made was buying the DvD version, vice a CD. It's not to bad but does try to put me on some really strange routes at times, but I know people with GPS's which would have them on a route consisting of a dirt road next to a cornfield (I was following them when it did this).

Max for me is about 500 miles.When I was younger I could do more but traveling with the dog and DW limits the hours too.