I-85 or I-95 GA/SC/NC/VA at Thanksgiving
 

We may need to drive to a relative's house at the crush of the Thanksgiving holiday and would like the choose the route that would be the lesser of two evils in terms of traffic.

I have used I-85/77/81 before between Georgia and Pennsylvania at that time and it was much worse than some of the other trips I have taken over holidays, so I was wondering if using I-20/95 might be a generally better or worse route than I-85? I know they will both be busy and no one can control accidents, but some roads are designed better and seem to handle traffic congestion better. I'm not familiar with I-95.

Also, I assume AAA is the best place to check for roadwork enroute to help in decision?

We can usually avoid driving on the crunch days around the holidays, but this year we just have to go a relative's house and we may not have much control over the time. Sigh...
I will owe my husband big for this one. They are my relatives.

What is your destination city? Where are you starting from? I 85 has construction north of Charlotte.

Are you traveling on Thanksgiving Day? If so, not so bad.

If the day before or the Sunday after, I would expect madness, especially around Richmond, where construction has been causing endless delays, and Washington, which is wretched at best. I95 is pretty much a horror story.

It would be helpful to know where you are going in PA as well as where you are starting. Virginia has a number of divided highway, non interstate options.

I imagine the 85/77/81 would be about as good as you'll find. I can't imagine 95 would be a good choice anytime you don't have to do it.
Assuming you are going north, you get off 85 before the construction.

The route that I followed from Melbourne FL to Harrisburg PA was up I-95 to I-26 in SC to I-77 at Columbia to I-81 near Pulaski VA. I-81 always had less than half the traffic as was around Richmond.
I I once left Melbourne in the early morning and drove to Harrisburg in 15 hours (never again). All of the construction projects should finish on Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

Sorry,
in editing I left off that this time we will meet up at one of the relative's houses in Virginia, not Pennsylvania. We've done that route several times so that is my point of reference. We may also be meeting up with other relatives to carpool partway, so some uncertainty about exact origin and destination. One of those times we are trying to go with the flow although that is not our nature.

Once we know specifically which house/town we will meet at, whether we are carpooling from origins, etc., we will plot the specific route, but I know the two interstate routes to choose from are 85 and 20/95 in Georgia, SC, NC, and VA, and secondary roads or highways in VA.

I'll make a note to avoid I-85 north of Charlotte, the Richmond area, and check out divided 4-lane highways in Virginia as alternative to some of the interstate. I like to know the 4-lanes anyway. One time we were in heavy holiday traffic on I-81 and found out there was a massive accident ahead, so we were glad we already knew our alternate route through Virginia instead of blindly following a GPS offered route at night.

You realize, of course that a LOT depends on the <B>time of day</B>in which you are driving in some of these areas such as "wretched" Washington and "conjested" Richmond.

No, because of bridge construction on 95 in Richmond, there are likely to be significant delays every single day except the holiday itself. The contractor is behind and encouraged to work 24/7. The holiday itself should be okay. The Times Dispatch gives the delays expected daily, both in the paper and on their website.

Traffic on 495 in Washingon is fine roughly 9 to 3. Unless there is an accident. There are slowdowns all day long on I 95 south of 495 owing to lane extensions to Quantico, though the longstanding delays at Occoquan seem finally to be over. Traffic backs up badly for the Potomac Mills shopping center between Thanksgiving and Christmas and is likely to be grim on Black Friday.

For traffic info in GA use GA Navigator
http://www.511ga.org/

I would probably pick the 20/95 routing.

We still have no idea of where in GA and where in VA these folks are going.
20 to 95 seems backward and VERY long in spite of Starrs expertise on all things south!! ;o)
How about close to what Tom suggests--85 to 20 to I77 to 81.

https://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-...ed=0CC0Q-A8wAA

What ever you do avoid I 95 in Northern Virginia, its a nightmere. 29 from Greensboro,NC through Virginia might be a very good option. I live in Maryland and drove to Georgia once going this way. Little traffic, a little slower than 81, but just a little bit slower and well worth it. Many sections are interstate grade and 65 mph. I don't know what part of PA your going to but you could either take it up to 66 to the DC Beltway and up 95 north of DC or go west to I81 through Western Maryland up into PA. Depends on what part of PA your going to.

Gretchen? Huh?

"20 to 95 seems backward and VERY long in spite of Starrs expertise on all things south!! ;o)"

Not sure how it's "backward" and if you map it you'll discover it's not VERY long. I went up via 85 and back via 95/20. I did find the 95/20 routing easy and it seemed faster. I just did a google map of Atlanta to DC via Fearrington Village NC (my routing since I was meeting suewoo there) with a return via Augusta (using the 95/20 routing). The difference was 35 miles. That's not a "VERY long" difference on a 10 hour trip one way. At least it wasn't for me. Thus, my sharing my personal opinion. That's for an Atlanta - DC - Atlanta routing. Since we don't know exactly where the OP is going to in Georgia, the routing via 95/20 could even be shorter.

Please, asdaven, don't give away the secret of US 29, used by generations of my family to get from Northern Virginia to South Carolina.

Folks, you would hate it!! No interesting trucks to look at, constant temptations to stop for BBQ and country cookin', small towns just off the highway.

Stick with the interstate, please!

Can't argue with experience but if you look at a map that route seems to go directly east (and even a little southeast before heading directly north--rather than traveling a hypotenuse (which is a shorter distance theoretically) of the travel "triangle". It is true that 95 in eastern NC and SC is very fast/pretty uncrowded.

Map it. That's all I can suggest. Obviously, based on your post, you don't believe me. Sounds unnecessarily snarky as well.

Please please, no no. I was only trying to explain what I thought--and said very sincerely that I could not argue with your actual experience. Absolutely no disrespect intended in any way. ;o(