trans. from washington dc to charleston
 

Any thoughts about how difficult it would be to drive from Washington DC. to Charleston and then Savannah? What would it be like to rent a car in Washington DC. and then make that drive out of the city? Thank you.

Take I-95 from the DC area to I-26 in South Carolina to Charleston. Then take SC Hwy 17 from Charleston to Savannah. Highway 17 is a beautiful drive.

A piece of cake. 532 miles to Charleston, 8:00 hours. I-395 south to I-95 to I-26 in SC to Charleston. Might want to take I-295 from north of Richmond to south of Petesburg where it feeds back into I-95. This allows you to avoid traffic through the Richmond-Petersburg corrridor. See freetrip.com

As far as the rental, you should rent from Reagan National airport. You can take the metro there from DC, then you will be south of the city, so no DC driving.

Karen

You pay a premium to rent from the airport. I'd rent in Arlington. I think National or Enterprise (it's a green sign) has a location that you can walk to from the Ballston metro stop.

And it's just National Airport.

Or for a drive along the coast that is not bad and more scenic than I95, take 95 to I40 in NC. Take I40 to Route 17 South at Wilmington. Wilmington is about a 3 1/2 hour drive to Charleston.

Yeah, I would definitely take I-295 around Richmond and avoid the downtown Richmond area. There is much traffic (depending on when you drive thru) plus the recent flooding along I-95 there. And you mean, Reagan National Airport....yeah I would take the subway a stop or 2 and rent away from the airport to avoid those nasty fees.

Ann, what do you mean? The airport is called Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, so I'm not sure what your comment means.

Deborah - despite that, Ann does give a good option for the car rental. It would be a little cheaper to go her route. :)

Karen

Karen, I'm going to pretend you never said that. We'll just call it DCA, okay?

For convenience, I'd rent out of DCA as well, but I find that rental bargains from out of BWI are often worth the extra drive. I'll also suggest taking the I-295 loop to the east of Richmond as well. Nothing difficult about the drive, but it sure is boring as hell on I-95. The worse part of the drive is the I-395/I-95 "mixing bowl" in the Springfield VA area, avoidable if you took GW Parkway south from DCA, connecting to US-1 for awhile, then finally to I-95 in the vicinity of Potomac Mills.

Thanks for all the help on this. I am trying to figure out if it will be easy enough to drive from Washington DC to Charleston and then Savannah--or possibly take Amtrak from Washington DC and stop at these places and then board again..i'm not sure if that is easier than driving and I am doing it with my 80 year old mother. I
appreciate all the advise because I really don't have a clue never having been in this part of the country.
Thanks.

I would take a good look at the time on the train. I have taken Amtrak from Raleigh to NYC, which I imagine is not a lot different from Charleston/Washington. It can be a long ride, although mostly relaxing. The drive shouldn't be bad at all. I have never made it personally but have driven to Charleston and Washington a couple of times each from Durham, NC (about half way between). You don't have to have a car in Charleston, but I think it is definitely best to have one. It is so easy to drive around there. You should have easy driving once you get an hour or so out of Washington.

Thanks so much for the advise-I think we will drive instead of taking the train...now if I could just decide where to stay in Charleston-so many, many places!

OR, take interstates 270 to 70 to 68 to 79 to get to Charleston. Then 77 south to Columbia then 26 to 95 and south to Savannah.