Car Travel
Williamsburg is west of Interstate 64, 51 miles southeast of Richmond; the Colonial Parkway joins Williamsburg with Jamestown to the southwest and Yorktown to the east. Interstate 664 forms the eastern part of a beltway through the Hampton Roads area and connects Newport News with Portsmouth. Interstate 264 runs from Interstate 664 to downtown Norfolk, and then extends all the way to Virginia Beach. Interstate 64 runs from Hampton to Portsmouth around the west side of Norfolk to intersect Interstate 664.
Since weekend traffic on Interstate 64 East can be quite heavy, consider leaving that interstate at Exit 205 for Route 60 East—a four-lane highway that leads into Williamsburg past several restaurants as well as outlet shopping centers. If you are coming from the north on Interstate 95 and encountering heavy traffic outside Washington, D.C., you may want to leave Interstate 95 at Fredericksburg and go south to Yorktown on Route 17, a narrower road with stoplights, but less congestion. Because the ragged coastline is constantly interrupted by water, driving from one town to another usually means going through a tunnel or over a bridge, either one of which may create a traffic bottleneck. The entrance to the tunnel between Hampton and Norfolk can get very congested, especially on weekends, so tune in to your car radio for traffic reports, especially during rush hours.
In the Tidewater area, with a long list of tunnels and bridges connecting myriad waterways, it's easy to find yourself headed in the wrong direction. Highways have adequate signs, but sometimes it may be too late to merge before entering a tunnel/bridge. Traffic is highly congested during rush hour and during peak summer months, when the beach traffic can grind everything to a halt.
In congested periods, use the less-traveled Interstate 664. The 17½-mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel is the only connection between the southern part of Virginia and the Eastern Shore; U.S. 13 is the main route up the spine of the Eastern Shore peninsula into Maryland.
