How Many Hours Do Travel Per Day?

[Chewwi]

Am new to Rving. Know a couple of folks who do it and they both say about six hours of towing is their limit per day. Additionally, they say they would prefer to stay at least two days when they do stop. This certainly makes cross country travel take a while.

Have yet to take a trip that required more than this, but would like to take extended trip out west, next spring.

What is a reasonable number of days for a 4,500 mile round trip?


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[John303]

It kinda depends on your capacity to drive safely over long distances. I am about to retire, but when we have taken trips in the past we had to worry about getting there and back by a certain time. In my younger days I could drive 8-10 hours and felt safe about it. Nowadays, I am feeling fatigued after 5-6. With retirement on the horizon I am planning to drive 3-4 hours max whenever possible. That may change as I "age out". I have talked to older RVers who espoused the "2" rule. Never drive more than 2 hours at a time, cover more than 200 miles a day, and stay at a site for at least 2 days. Throw some heavy city traffic and road construction into the mix, and it may be a "1.5" rule .

I want my RVing to be enjoyable. Arriving at a destination fatigued, or not arriving because I got tired and had an accident, is something I do not want to happen. Like anything, eat the elephant one bite at a time. Take some shorter trips and work your way up. You will find out where your limit is.

[livinthelife]

Am new to Rving. Know a couple of folks who do it and they both say about six hours of towing is their limit per day. Additionally, they say they would prefer to stay at least two days when they do stop. This certainly makes cross country travel take a while.

Have yet to take a trip that required more than this, but would like to take extended trip out west, next spring.

What is a reasonable number of days for a 4,500 mile round trip?


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For us, 200-250 miles in a day. Most days that's about 4-6 hours. Although we have had days that we traveled more miles/hours, especially in the midwest where the roads are flat and straight. I don't really like one night stops, so we try to stop for at least 2 nights every 3rd stop at a minimum. Sometimes it's longer, if there's a lot to see/do at any given stop.

Yes, it takes a while to make a long trip that way, but, in our opinion, that's what RV travel is about. A 4500 mile trip would be at least a 3 week trip for us. Probably more like 4-5 weeks.

[BreakfastinAmerica]

Traveling seems to always give me 50 . It hardly ever changes.

[sande005]

Just completed a 3500 mile trip. Mostly Interstate. It seems if I budget 45-50 mph, I can usually get close to my guestimated hours it takes to get somewhere. Actual highway speed is 65-70, but then there are rest stops, meals, traffic slow downs, etc. that eat up time. So 300 miles take 6-7 hrs, etc.
Try as I might, it seems impossible to not roll out of a CG until 9:30 or 10. On a great day, as early as 9. The other just likes to sleep, and then has the morning routine to complete....
So planning for 6 hrs lands us at our destination for the night at around 4 pm. We've done 9-10 hr days, but those get really long, and setting up in the CG late in the evening, when it may have gotten dark, is just no fun.
Gone are the road warrior days where we did NYC to Minneapolis in one shot......

[geotex1]

Most long timers settle into the Three 3s. 300 miles a day, stretch and facilities breaks every 3 hours, and off the road by 3pm.

I personally try to keep my road time at about 6 hours, but it depends on a number of things. I just did a 13.5 hour straight run across three States for instance.

[OurNewEra]

We shoot for no more than 5 hours per day, prefer 4 hours. Our previous trailer was a 1962 Airstream Safari - 24 ft. Very simple trailer, no slides not bathroom, etc. . . it was very, very easy to setup and breakdown. We have made two roundtrips Florida to California, one Florida to Boston and 3 Florida to Michigan. On those trips with our Airstream we do one one night stays. As I said it was no problem setting up and breaking down for a one night stay. In the past we would do Florida to California in 5 days pulling our Airstream.

With our new 2021 2970RL (34') that will be a whole different story. Larger and heavier trailer is more work on our older 1996 TV, setup and breakdown can be a heck of a lot more work. So what we anticipate is 4-5 hours per day, 5 is on the high side and no one night stays. I say 4-5 hours but that means we plan 4-5 hours driving time which usually turns into actually 5-6 hours on the road, time from point A to point B. I prefer backroads over the Interstates. And if you have pets, which we no longer have, add another hour. If you have pets the backroads can be challenging to find places for to stop and let the animal stretch and take care of business. Rest areas are definitely more convenient.

[Capt Jim]

Most long timers settle into the Three 3s. 300 miles a day, stretch and facilities breaks every 3 hours, and off the road by 3pm.

I personally try to keep my road time at about 6 hours, but it depends on a number of things. I just did a 13.5 hour straight run across three States for instance.

We do exactly this. I could still do a 12 hour run if I had to, but I sure as #@%& don't want to. I drive 65 and do my best to enjoy.

Safe Travels.

Jim

[CoChris]

Am new to Rving. Know a couple of folks who do it and they both say about six hours of towing is their limit per day. Additionally, they say they would prefer to stay at least two days when they do stop. This certainly makes cross country travel take a while.

Have yet to take a trip that required more than this, but would like to take extended trip out west, next spring.

What is a reasonable number of days for a 4,500 mile round trip?


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I would say the answer depends on what you are comfortable with, what you want to get out of it and what your constraints are. The "correct" answer is what is right for you.

I used to race cars all over the county (and had a real paying job that I had to get back to). I would typically tow for 16+ hours a day, eat in the truck on the go etc. But then our goal was to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. The other extreme is I am now retired, have an RV and travel to see the sites, enjoy the journey and the destination. DW and I typically plan for about 4 (max 6) hours driving with a lunch stop in the middle. Sometimes where we want to stop and camp next is only a couple of hours. On the way home, in good weather and good roads I often do an 8+ hour final leg. The miles are somewhat road and weather. Flat interstate good weather I rack up more miles per day (I tow at 65 MPH in the right lane) then I do in the mountains on 2 lane highways. I try not to tow in really bad weather. If I have to tow in bad weather (only a couple of times in three years of RVing) I try to balance the drive time with the forecast/severity of the weather and how tired I am/get. Better to get there a day (or hour) late then have an accident! See my comments on leaving slack in the schedule below.

We have a Solitude 5er that (I think) is easy to set up. takes us about 30 min to set up camp and the same to break down & hook up (+30~45 mins to dump & flush tanks when we do). Even so, I prefer to stay at least 2 nights (3 is better) in one area. A few times, traveling across country (Colorado to Oregon, Colorado to Minnesota) we just make one night stops and it is no problem, but DW almost always finds something interesting to see in the area for a day or two. But again, we are retired and the goal for us is to "see the country", so we are in no hurry.

One last point is we typically go out for 4~6 weeks at a time. We always (try) to plan at least one easy/no plans day every week or two. You never know when you are going to have problems (flat tire, mechanical issues, just plain tired, etc.), run into bad weather or just plain want an extra day in an area. We find having a little slack in the schedule make for a more relaxed trip. With campground filling up (and we like to have reservations) this is still possible, but a little more difficult.

Hope this helps give you some ideas.

Chris

[zenasboy]

we did a ~4300 mile trip this summer from IN to Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Devils Tower, Badlands and then home. 2 week trip and in order to maximize time at our destinations I typically drove 500-550 miles per day getting there and then coming home which took 10-11 hours depending on stops. Long and tiring days. Looking forward to when we're retired and don't have constraints of limited vacation time so we can travel at a more leisurely pace.