Boston to Suffolk VA on day before Thanksgiving
 

Please help. I would need to know how long I can expect to be stuck in traffic in the NYC area on the day before Thanksgiving. I would expect to be there around 5 pm.

Is there an alternate route that would take less time to navigate?
Any tips are helpful.
Thank you

Alternative to what?

I'd leave on Tuesday.

Seriously, I think you need to give yourself from 30-50% more time for the route on that day. The 4 hours from Boston to New York may take 6 hours. So to get there by 5PM, you probably need to give yourself 15 hours....2AM.

Have you investigated taking a train or plane?

You will encounter problems much earlier than NYC area, unfortunately. The routes leaving Boston area - all of them - are notoriously horrible on that Wednesday - and even Tues evening.

What time can you leave Boston?

Even getting out of Boston will be horrendous. The Mass Pike can come to a near standstill during the day before Thanksgiving travel surge and it's bad all day long. It's not just trouble getting out of the city, it's trouble getting across the state and even down through Connecticut.

If you cannot leave early the prior day, then wait until after 8pm to leave Boston.

And then you'll hit traffic around DC which won't let up until you hit Suffolk. I'm going to say your trip will be 100% longer. I've heard some real nightmare stories of travel on that Wed.

I'd consider leaving Boston later, taking the Garden State to Atlantic City and spending the night then cross on the Cape May ferry and down the DELMARVA to the bay bridge on Thanksgiving morning.

Everything everyone says is not only true, it is worse than they say.

Your only hope of getting to Suffolk by 5 PM is to leave in the wee small hours of the morning AND figure out how to avoid NY at morning rush hour.

If I HAD to do this, I would do MassPike to I 84 to Scranton, PA, I 81 to Staunton, VA, and I 64 to 684. If you leave really early, you will avoid the 2+ hour backups on the MassPike, the backups crossing the Hudson and at the Delaware Memorial bridge, and the Baltimore to Fredericksburg mess. It is a long way round, but it will be faster than the direct routes.

The other alternative is emalloy's GSP, ferry and DELMARVA route, but you still have to get to and the cross the Hudson, and you will need a ferry reservation on the holiday weekend. So I would do a really early start rather than a late one.

The other downer, of course, is that you are presumably planning to come back. If you do it on Sunday, you get to do it all again.

I'd do the trip on Tuesday with returning on Saturday if at all possible.

You're in for a lot of pain.

a world of hurt

We cannot leave until noon on Wednesday. We only need to make it to Delaware before we go on 70 and 13 to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. We will be going on to Disney doe a week and a few days after.

If you leave Boston at noon on Wed you will not get near NYC until after 7 pm or so - the later part of the rush hour. But still horrendous. Plan on getting to Delaware perhaps at 10 pm or so - if there are no major accidents or bad weather.

I suggest that when you get south of NYC and reach the entrance of the NJ Turnpike, abandon your vehicle and start walking. It'll be faster.

I suggest you take Rte 113 to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge tunnel from south of Dover...faster route as a general rule.