We’ll be going from Seattle to Dallas, which is about 2k miles or 2.5k miles if we take the CA coast route down first.
I’ve never driven those sorts of distances. What’s a safe distance/number of hours to travel each day? How many days would you expect this to take?
If we just wanted to “get there”? What about if we didn’t want to rush and wanted to make more of a trip of it?
33 comments
Why not just fly?
If you’re ok with driving all day and only stopping to eat and sleep you can do 500+ miles per day (750+ if you are _really_ willing to do nothing but drive), but that’s gonna be a pretty boring trip. If your goal is just to get between the two places you should probably fly. Otherwise if time permits find a few destinations along the way and spend a few days at those places to make it more interesting and see more places.
Epic road trip! If you’re switching off who’s driving every so often, I’d say you could easily do 10 hours a day total (so 2 2.5-hour shifts per person per day).
It should be roughly 50-75 hours of driving total (50 if you can average 50 mph across the whole trip), so it should take you about 5 days.
I would definitely suggest taking the California coast route, that is some gorgeous scenery (so is the Oregon part of that), albeit slower than the interstate.
For a nice, leisurely trip I’d suggest allowing 10-14 days.
If you are a member of AAA, they can do a trip plan for you, might be worth it for the trip (plus they have towing coverage in case you break down).
Don’t forget a cooler full of snacks and drinks and an epic road trip playlist!
Trade off the driving.
One mile at a time.
3-4 days if it’s pure driving. Plan for about 400-800 miles per day depending how much you want to drive. You can average over 60 miles/hr if you don’t stop much.
However, no matter how you go, you’re going to be driving through some cool spots — likely Utah/Colorado/Arizona/New Mexico. There may be some parks (or maybe some cities or towns) you may want to see more of. You should have at least a rough plan of what you want to see and where you’re going to stay each night.
I personally start hating myself at about the 5 hour straight mark. But if you can plan a relaxing/interesting 1-2 hours out-of-the-car thing to do each day, you can pretty easily get 8-10 hours in a day if you have two drivers.
To make it comfortable, swap drivers every 2 hours at a rest stop and just quickly stretch your legs, take a piss, grab a coffee/red bull/juice, and then get back on the road. Some people can get super focused on getting the miles in, thinking that’s the best way to minimize the discomfort, but it *never* works. Getting out of the car and moving around keeps your legs and back stretched.
Any faster or longer than the above is kinda miserable and, IMO, not worth it.
It’s about 5.5-6 hours from San Fran to LA, all freeway driving.
It’s roughly 6 hours from LA to Phoenix, all freeway driving.
I’d recommend a full day of driving between major cities.
Taking the scenic routes is going to take longer.
Long time road tripper. You can do power mode and clear 900 miles in s day, or take a more relaxed approach and aim for 300-450 per day.
How much time do you have? I’m assuming you’re renting a car, what’s your travel budget? When is the trip?
You’ve got most of the western half of the United States as a possibility. It could be as epic as you want it to be or you could just pound interstate miles. What to do depends on your budget, time, and when.
Take a break once every 4 hours. Pull over if you begin to nod off.
What about going to some of the national/state parks on the way? I think some allow dogs.
We did Philly to Houston (about 1350 miles) in two 12ish hour days, but had 3 drivers in the car that switched out every 2 hours or so and took a lunch break at a restaurant both days. Being a passenger is tiring even if you don’t think you are doing anything.
You know your own ability better than us. I was able to do Boston to southern FL in two days by myself in two days, staying over halfway at a motel, but that was 25 years ago or so. Now that I’m older, I’d never do 12 hours of driving per day; more like 6 or 8, just because that’s my endurance now. With two people, I’d still limit it to 8 or 10 hours at most.
If you are not use to driving that far don’t push more than 6-8 hours in a day. If anything plan the first day from Seattle to Ashland and see how that goes. But I also recommend don’t rush it, lots of things to see on the way, if you go the CA route just make sure it’s not then the 5 after the Bay Area as that stretch on the 5 to LA is BORING and just farmland, switch over to the 101, part of hwy 1 is washed out so safer to just take the 101 , still a pretty drive.
I’d check on typical weather conditions if you’re going over the Rockies. Even in April I imagine some of those passes can get hairy.
But the recommended google maps route of Seattle/Boise/SLC/Albuquerque/Dallas looks nice.
We drive from Tennessee to Seattle and back every year (2700 miles each way). My biggest advice to you is to stop every 4 hours or so. Get out of the car, stretch your legs, make a potty stop, just take five or ten minutes, and then switch drivers. We started doing this when we started traveling with a dog — before then, we used to push ourselves to just keep going. But those breaks make a HUGE difference in our stamina, and makes the whole experience much more pleasant. Our longest mileage day was 900+ miles from the Oklahoma panhandle to Nashville. I wouldn’t recommend that distance at all, but those regular stops every few hours made the whole experience totally bearable. If you really want to just “get there,” I find about 700 miles a day (or 12 total hours driving) as a maximum tolerable amount, and only for two or three days in a row. And we are exhausted at the end of it. Much better to take your time, if possible.
So my recommendation would be, if you do have the time to take it slower, please do. Stop and visit interesting locations, eat at the interesting roadside cafes, pull over onto the scenic viewpoints. You will have a more memorable experience than if you just focus on “getting there.” Have a great trip!
We easily do over 1000 miles at a shot (central Florida to upstate New York) with a couple driver changes. Just knock it out in two days
Especially with a dog, I recommend doing some planning and making reservations. Many places say they take pets, but actually limit size and may charge a lot extra.
Look at the estimated time it takes from point to point, rather than miles per se. Towns with reasonable accommodations can be quite spread out, and restaurants aren’t necessarily open for long hours.
Especially with your pup, you’ll need breaks every few hours, and time for however many/length of walks you need to keep pup happy and cooperative.
The coast highway is gorgeous, but will take much, much longer. I’d suggest making that it’s own trip another time, since your destination is so far. Once you commit to the coast route, there are limited opportunities to return to a freeway.
IMO it depends a ton on how much time you have to do the trip and whether or not the goal is to simply reach the destination or to enjoy the journey. I live near Seattle and have done Seattle -> Phoenix several times. And I’ve done LA/San Diego to Dallas a few times when I was younger.
Once I have done Seattle > Phoenix straight through, solo. It absolutely kicked my ass. A little over 20 hours or so of straight driving. If I have extra time, I usually try to plan for 300-350 miles a day. This allows time for a bit of exploring and random stops along the way.
I’ve done cross country road trips before on a tight timeline. My tips are 1. No more than 10 hours driving per day. 2. Start at 7am every day and plan a long lunch stop. Do something fun during this stop like going to the BEST barbecue in Oklahoma City or whatever. Gives you something to look forward to. 3. Off the road by 7 – youre at your hotel or campsite or whatever by 7pm- you can have a relaxing dinner, exercise, and get a full nights sleep.
If you’re not on a time crunch shorten this to 6 hours max per day and see the more interesting stuff on your drive. Do some hiking, see that weird roadside attraction etc. favorite of these I’ve done in boars tusk in Wyoming.
I’ll preface this with it’s dependent on the individual. I myself have done back to back days of 12 hours of driving. (I’ll never do it again willingly, but I know I can if I have to).
First I’ll assume you just want to get there. Seattle to Dallas is about 32 hours according to Google maps. If you have two drivers, I don’t see why you can’t make it in 2 days. (16 hours each day, each person drives 8 hours.
However, the US is gorgeous, I highly recommend you take your time and stop by a few places. You could easily make that trip last 2 weeks if you wanted to with all the things you can stop and see along the way. I’m not really sure what there is to stop and see on the direct route, but I’m sure it’s pretty. I would suggest either going down the coast through to LA (big sur is awesome), or if it’s going to be late spring, early summer, going east first to Montana and then south through Wyoming and Colorado.
For a single day drive I’ll do up to about 12 hours on the road. And if I’m solo that means about 750-800 miles because I will only stop for gas and one or two quick bites of food.
If I will be driving multiple days though I don’t like to do more than 8 hours driving per day. If with someone else there will be more frequent and longer stops so with both of those I probably wouldn’t do more than roughly 500 miles per day.
I’ve done this before twice (along with another thousand miles)
I recommend driving about 6 hours a day unless you’re limited by time. Also, don’t set a hard stop, just pull a map out at lunch and pick a city to stop in.
Just getting there is absolutely miserable. Theoretically you could just get there in about three days taking a more direct route (two days if you have two drivers or are willing to really push it solo … not recommended, it’s not safe).
Six hours (for me) was enough time for a scenery change without getting too frustrated with driving. It also allowed me time to stop and check out attractions.
BTW I highly recommend driving through Montana/Wyoming rather than California unless you want to spend a couple days in San Fran / LA or it’s winter. It’s much nicer scenery (IMO). My favorite parts of going cross country were between Idaho and Wyoming. Crisscrossing the Yellowstone River on I-90 is awesome and the Black Hills are a highly underrated national treasure.
On our cross-country road trip we tried to do 700 miles/10 hours as the max for a day, split among two people, and that worked pretty well. Even on the longest days we had time to stop for a meal, maybe see a quick sight, etc without hating our lives at the end of the day. Any more than that I probably wouldn’t recommend since you say you haven’t done this before, and even 10 hours is a lot. If you can, maybe aim for 6 or 7 hours a day so you’re not miserable and you have some room for flexibility.
My biggest pro-tip is to wake up early and prioritize driving in daylight as much as you possibly can. I found it made a huge psychological difference, more than I realized at first. If you wake up earlier than usual, it sucks at first but then those hours feel like bonus time, like they didn’t really count. And driving in the dark when you’re tired is just *so* much more tedious and potentially stressful.
It depends on your personal driving habits and how soon you get tired. Also how much your second person will drive to let you rest.
For myself, I know I can safely do 800km in a day on my own, with the necessary breaks. So that’s how I plan. In the past, I have split up a 2,200km drive into three days, and 1200km into two.
I find 700 miles/day (11-12 hours) to be doable with 2 drivers. If you can get to where you need to go using US highways or state highways rather than interstate highways (select “Avoid Highways” in Google Maps), you won’t have to deal with as many large trucks speeding up and slowing down on hills, but your average speed will be a bit slower. The western desert states have their own charm, but they can be quite barren, and the miles just don’t seem to go by very quickly.
I believe you can purchase a Trip Tik from AAA. It’s a detailed map between destinations including rest stops, hotels and services. IIRC it gives estimated drive times. AFAIK you can customize it. It’s available in digital or you can order a printed version. I think you can get one without being a AAA subscriber. It’s been a few years since I last used one.
I like to do 3-4 hours driving in the morning, 3-4 stop/adventure/hike, 3-4 more driving in the afternoon on any roadtrip unless im hauling ass to my destination
Before you start your trip, open a map application of your choice.
Find a stopping point around 2 hours away from your starting point. Make sure it has at least a gas station there, having multiple stations plus restaurant options is even better. Plan a 15 or so minute break there for gas, restrooms, snacks, stretching your back, etc.
Then find another stopping point that’s about a 2 hour drive from there. Factor in another 15 minutes for a break. Repeat for as many segments as you want to drive in a single day.
This allows you to plan not only where you stop along the way, but also where you plan to stop for the night. You can call ahead to a hotel or motel for that final stopping point of the day and reserve whatever rooms you need in advance. That way you’re not trying to find a place when you’re exhausted from the road.
Repeat the same process for the each of the following days until you’ve arrived at your destination. That way you’ve got the whole trip planned out before you even get behind the wheel.
I’ve used this system to perform multiple cross country moves driving solo, and I’ve found it to work quite well. Taking a break every two hours or so makes the drive much more comfortable than trying to drive straight through.
If you’ve never driven that far what is the longest distance you’ve ever driven uninterrupted? What’s the longest difference you’ve driven uninterrupted comfortably?
Divide your route into segments based on those two lengths (so, if the first is 100 miles and the second is 80 make sure to stop every 80-100 miles). The actual segment length will depend on where you can comfortably stop. Switch drivers, have a snack, and go to the bathroom at the end of each segment.
Try not to drive more than 8-9 hours per day (total, so if you have 3 drivers that’s 3 hours max each). If you actually want to see anything (and there’s plenty to see) try not to drive more than 5 hours per day.
This trip is approximately 40 hours total, so 4 really hard days, or 5 boring days, or 10 ok days, or 15 really fun days (check out the roadside attractions, it’s what America is all about).
As a person who’s taken this trip, we went and stayed in Reno and Vegas for two days each.
Drive four to six hours. Get gas and pee as needed. Then do something like a nice meal or attraction. Get back on the road for another four hours. That’s pretty bearable chunks of driving, especially if you switch at two to three hours.
Took me a week to go from Orange County Ca to Arkansas with two cats. Drove one day rested a day. Better on my migraines. Better for the cats.