First of all - you ain't gonna average 70 mph. No way, no how. Sure there are areas where you can go 80 or 85 and not get arrested (but w/ sleep deprivation that is plain stupid). But there are also lots of areas where you will be in cities or construction zones and maybe averaging 35 or 40 mph or less and if you hit it at the wrong time 20 mph. On this sort of trek you can't plan to miss commute times.

I would bet your average speed over the whole trip is closer to 55 than to 70.

And you aren't going to be doing ANY sightseeing since the sites are off the interstates and you simply don't have time for even 2 or 3 mile detours.

So it really is a pretty lame idea - not the driving coss country, but doing it straight through. If you took 6-7 days - sure. Otherwise - fly . . . . . .

My young cousin and her dad did it in less than three days. She was a newly hired United Flight Attendant, needed her car to get from LA to DC to be at her first base. She didn't have money to ship the car, had just paid for all the uniforms, apartment, etc. We all shook our heads, but they made it. They did pull off the road during the nights to get a few hours rest in the car. At least you will be three.
Please be careful.

Since I am the one who said "average 70mph", I guess I need to respond. First, I did say it's 40 hours of driving, so the 70mph is the average speed actually on the road.

I will stand by that average. It can easily be done by driving less than 10mph over speed limit - which everybody does anyway. That means maybe 72-73 in the east where speed limit is 65mph, and 77-82 out west. Nothing that unusual.

Also, the route I described doesn't have a lot of traffic. She's leaving DC early in the morning, so no problem; and arriving late in LA, so again no traffic. No traffic in the west. So, the only place that can slow her down a little are Columbus, Indianapolis and St. Louis.

Still, I'm talking about driving at 72-82mph. Even if she hits traffic at all those three cities, she can still make 70mph. Easy. In fact, it's a very conservative estimate.

Now, just want to make sure I am not misunderstood, this does not include stop time for food and fuel. It's just driving time. 40 hours. Add 5 hours of stopping, it's 45 hours. Start 3am Day 1 east coast time, 45 hours later is 9pm Day 2 pacific.

It's not that crazy.

BTW, let me correct the route. Out of DC, use I-68 all the way into WV. Then I-79 to Charleston and then I-64 to St. Louis. You won't hit Columbus and Indianapolis this way.

Traffic is not a problem in Charleston or Lexington, and just minor in Louisville. In St. Louis, one can take the I-255 bypass if it's rush hour.

"It can easily be done by driving less than 10mph over speed limit - which everybody does anyway. That means maybe 72-73 in the east where speed limit is 65mph, and 77-82 out west. Nothing that unusual"

You must not drive much on roads like I-80 and some other congested interstates. Sure there are stretches where one can comfortably go over the speed limits. But there are LOTS of places where you are lucky to get up to the speed limit for most of the day - maybe at 2:00 in the morning but from 0600 to about 1930 speed limits aren't even an issue.

BTW - they often have zero tolerance weekends in CA - where they write tix for even one mile over the speed limit. Always announced ahead of time - like this weekend is going to be a full saturation/zero tolerance. You can't ever assume 10 mph over is safe - even in the wilds of NV.

janisj - I have driven on most interstates in the US, so I know my routes. We're specifically talking about I-68/79/64/44/40/15 or I-70/44/40/15. We're not talking about I-80 through Chicago.

Those routes I mention, there's indeed light traffic. And I am telling people to drive less than 10mph over. NOT 10 OVER! That's a big difference.

And California? Try driving speed limit on I-15. You'll be run off the road by the traffic (unless it's congested).

Let's do some calculations. 2,800miles. I say 70mph for 40hours. Let's say you get stuck for traffic in St. Louis for a whole hour, going 0 miles. You now need to do 2,800 miles in 39hours - holy cow, you need to average 71.8 mph now! If you also got stuck in congestion somewhere wasting another hour, you need to go 2,800 miles in 38 hours. Meaning 73.7mph. With speed limit at 70-75 for the most part of the drive, even that's totally doable.

BTW, here are the state limits:

MD - 65
WV - 70
KY - 65
IN - 70
IL - 65
MO - 70
OK, TX, NM, AZ - 75 (I-40 doesn't get 80 in TX)
CA - 70

As you can see, if you average out the distance, the average limit on the route is above 70; with almost half of it at 75.

Well the trip is completed! We got there in less than 3 days and I didn't think it was very difficult at all. We stopped in Vegas for 4 hours, the Hoover Dam for one, a National Park in Utah for 3 hours, stopped at Oz in Kansas for a little while, got off the road and saw the arch, stopped at a prairie dog museum, stopped at Buffalo Bills gravesite for almost an hour and stopped and had a nice dinner towards the end of Colorado in a really neat town.

Oh and thank you 'rkkwan' you were fairly accurate about speeds and such. We hit traffic, well construction, very very briefly once, early on in our trip. The rest of the time we didn't have any trouble. We went straight through all the big cities and didn't use any of the bypasses and traffic through Las Vegas even wasn't too bad.

Thanks for getting back to us. I wondered if you had returned from your trip to CA. Three days with three drivers worked for you.