Smokies Road Trip Route (Need Help)
Road Master
Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 755
Likes: 5
From: Tallahassee, FL/Blue Ridge, GA
From experience last year mapquest and your GPS will lie to you about how long a trip will take. One day last year both said it would be a 8 hour drive for that day. After 11 hours we were still 3 hours from Maggie Valley if we had stayed on the BRP so he jumped on the interstate for another 1 1/2 hours to get to the motel. Even on the trip home the GPS said 8 hours. We traveled interstates at 75 mpg stopping only for gas and lunch and it took close to 11 hours to travel 440 miles. I'm going back this year again but do not plan to ride over 300 miles a day and only on the first and last day will I do that many miles. Last year I planned for 4 days and this year 7-8 days. I missed too many places I wanted to stop. If I can figure out how to share mapquest I'll post some of the routes I have laid out using Maggie Valley as a home base.
An excellent point. In Florida, I take whatever time my GPS tells me and it takes me and subtract 25% for my actual time. In the mountains, I have to ADD 25% to it's ETA.
Tourer
Joined: Aug 2008
Posts: 335
Likes: 14
From: Baltimore
The crazy thing about the GPS time is I plotted the route over the exact roads I would be traveling on so the GPS knew the spped limits on those roads. Even on the last day I punched in "go home" and followed the GPS routes on the interstates and it still took me longer then the GPS said it would.
Thread Starter
|
Road Master
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 822
Likes: 4
From: Huntsville, AL
Only day i am really worried about making the mileage is on the Blue Ridge Pkwy. But again thats only 300 miles for a full day.
Now the last 2 days of the trip are my biggest questions. We will be staying around the Bluefield, WV area. At that point (Sunday) we will begin heading back towards Mississippi. It would be awesome not to have to come back through ways that we have taken before.
Im looking at possibly cutting down through NC, SC, GA, and back over
OR
Cutting over to Ohio, KY (MY HOME STATE), and back down. Neither route adds more than 150 miles and over a 2 day period thats not much.
Whats more scenic though? Any ideas?
On another note, i sat down this morning and added up the miles i will riding just for July trips alone and it comes out to around 4,500.
4th of July weekend my Brother is going home to Ky from Ft. Meade before he goes to his new duty station in Hawaii. So we will make that trip of 1000 miles round trip.
The very next weekend (July 9th), we will leave on Thursday and haul *** to Joliet(Chicago), Ill to help out some brothers. (See attached flyer) That will be around 1600-1700 round trip.
Then 2 weeks later on the 21st we will leave for the Smokies trip.
So all in all, July should be a pretty good month!!!!
Now the last 2 days of the trip are my biggest questions. We will be staying around the Bluefield, WV area. At that point (Sunday) we will begin heading back towards Mississippi. It would be awesome not to have to come back through ways that we have taken before.
Im looking at possibly cutting down through NC, SC, GA, and back over
OR
Cutting over to Ohio, KY (MY HOME STATE), and back down. Neither route adds more than 150 miles and over a 2 day period thats not much.
Whats more scenic though? Any ideas?
On another note, i sat down this morning and added up the miles i will riding just for July trips alone and it comes out to around 4,500.
4th of July weekend my Brother is going home to Ky from Ft. Meade before he goes to his new duty station in Hawaii. So we will make that trip of 1000 miles round trip.
The very next weekend (July 9th), we will leave on Thursday and haul *** to Joliet(Chicago), Ill to help out some brothers. (See attached flyer) That will be around 1600-1700 round trip.
Then 2 weeks later on the 21st we will leave for the Smokies trip.
So all in all, July should be a pretty good month!!!!
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
reesestewww
"The Florida Crew"
5
Jul 14, 2010 05:44 PM
