Boston to Florida
 

I would like to travel from Boston to Florida (Disney World) in 2 days. I will be traveling with my husband and 2 children (ages 6 & 9). Can we drive this distance in 2 days? We plan on driving half of the miles on day 1, staying over that night and continuing on with the other half the following day, day 2. Please give me your insight. Also, what is the best route(shortest driving time).Thank you.

It will be a tough trip, but you can do it in 2 days. We drive from a town about 25 miles north of Boston to Savannah (not the same route after Washington) several times/year - that is 1000 miles and I am exhausted after the 2-day drive.

Mapquest lists it as 20 hours. However, I find the northern part of this trip - thru MA, CT, NY, NJ always has some issue - construction, traffic, tanker rollovers, etc. It is not unusual for the first 500 miles to take us 12 hours and the second 500 miles to take 8.

Remember that driving times on various mapping programs are just that - driving times. They do not figure in bathroom, meal, and restless children breaks. A lot will depend on how good your kids are at interminable amounts of time in the car. Various distractions will help, but it will still be a tough trip.

Make sure you get an EasyPass or FastLane transponder for tolls - it reduces aggravation at tolls and perhaps saves a little time.

I would also seriously look at costs. It is easy to compute cost of airfare. But if you stay on-property at WDW, you will not need a car.

Then add up, gas, tolls, food along the way, hotel on the way, and think about things like would you buy/rent a DVD player for kids for trip. To get a realistic price, you would have to add some factor for wear and tear on the car.

Unless you are going a school vacation week, you might be surprised and catch an airfare deal. I personally would cut my stay at WDW down by a day and fly.

I'd venture to say it's about 1,400 miles between Boston and Disney World which means you'd have to drive about 700 miles each day. If you averaged 60 MPH that means a minumum of about 12 3/4 hours of actual driving each day (not including stops for gas, meals or restroom breaks). That's a lot of driving and I'm not sure how children ages 6 & 9 will cope with sitting in a car for that long a period (only you know the answer). As for the best rout, you pretty much have to make your way from wherever in the Boston you are starting out to I-95 which you take all the way to Florida. Go to www.mapquest.com and enter your stating location and destination. You'll get "turn by turn, mile by mile" directions.

Quite honestly I think you are pushing it to make the trip in 2 days but it can be done if you both you and your husband share the driving and are committed to a difficult trip.

Thank you for the info. I do have a DVD player for the car and my kids are use to sitting in the car for long periods of time. I really don't want to drag out the driving time to 3 days. Flying is not an option, since my mom is joing us and refuses to fly. Thanks again for your info. I would be interested in hearing from some more people.

Boston to Orlando is 1,298 miles via the shortest route (i.e. I-90/84/91/95/NJTP/95, more-or-less). You need to at least pass Petersburg, VA (584mi from Boston), or hopefully into NC. It's going to be a long hard drive. Second day is about 700 miles, which is just as long, but at little easier.

It'll be tough for everybody. May want to check out the Auto Train on Amtrak. It departs Lorton (just south of DC) at 2pm, and arrives Sanford (just before Orlando) at 8:30am.

The problem with these "gotta do it" trips at this time of year is weather. We left Brookline for DC last Monday at 9 in the snow. The first 8 miles took an hour; the next hour got us just beyond Providence. What should have been 8.5 hours took us just over 10 even though we had light traffic the rest of the way and made great time after New Haven. It is safer to hope for two days each way but accept that it may take 2.5 or more.

A grandparent in car with 2 little kids makes it even worse. No matter how well everyone gets along, older people are just not used to the normal behavior of normal children in a car.

Our grandson learned two count reading the mile markers, and exit signs. By the first grade he could read a road map better than most. We then took him on a 9K mile 5 week road trip from South Florida to the Southern Rocky Mountains and north to Glacier NP and back to Ohio where he lives. If you get the little ones into the road trip and let them help plan they will enjoy.