By the end of September the summer traffic on the cape (which is brutal) is pretty much gone.

 

Traffic is very heavy on any of the interstates. I 95 will make you glad that you wore your brown leathers. The further north you go, the less traffic there is. Connecticut and Massachusetts are awful.

 

I did a 6 day, 1700 mile trip into ohio. the only traffic I encountered the entire week was on saturday, the day I left, around 10:00 am on the Mass turn pike, (rte 90). Someone who is supposedly smarter than us thought it would be a great idea to have a farmers market at one of the rest stops. Once I got by that it was smooth sailing the rest of the trip.

 

Thanks everyone, now all we need to do is sit down and lay out a route, many good suggestions.

 

At least in Connecticut, I would avoid:
- i95 (from Westchester to east of New Haven, actually best to stay off 95 all the way through NJ/NY/CT/RI and Mass).
- Rt. 1 (the Boston Post Road), at least until you're east of New Haven
- The i91 corridor (the closer you get to it, the worse the traffic is)
- i84 from Danbury to east of Hartford (gets pretty bad in places).

A detour around Hartford if you have to use i84:
- i84 to i691 (northeast of Waterbury)
- take i691 to i91 north (towards Hartford)
- take the Charter Oak bridge to i84 again
Only adds a few miles to the trip and you escape the Hartford mess.

If I was coming from the west or south, heading for northern New England, I'd probably skip Connecticut altogether. Go across Mass on Rt. 20, Rt. 9 or Rt. 2. Better yet, go above Mass through southern VT and NH...