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Nothing like hearing when you turn on to route 80 "next turn 300 miles" and you're going through nothing - no cities just wilderness. And I like being in the wilderness hiking, camping, but I hate driving through it for 4-5 hours.
A wildcard for me would be I-74/Hwy. 74 from Laurinburg, NC (just east of Charlotte) to Wilmington, NC. It's the longest 110 miles I've ever driven. Wide highway, straight as an arrow, and flat as a pancake. Unless you have someone to talk to in the car or the radio/CD/podcast to listen to, it's absolutely mind-numbing, lol.
Memphis to Mobile through Mississippi seems like an eternity.
We almost ran out of gas near Vaughan, MS when I was a kid. I'll never forget that, place seemed like a ghost town. There's really nothing around that area at all.
Washington State on I-90 seems long, but in truth is only 277 miles from Seattle to Spokane, due to the topography changing from mountains to flat at about near George, WA, in central WA. At 70 MPH, this works out to about 4.5 hours.
Maryland is considered a small state (because it is), so you might be surprised that in one respect, we are "bigger" than Washington State. The drive from Pocomoke City in the southeast part of the state to Friendsville in the far western part of the state is 317 miles, and is entirely contained within the state in a reasonably direct route with no backtracking.
Nothing like hearing when you turn on to route 80 "next turn 300 miles" and you're going through nothing - no cities just wilderness. And I like being in the wilderness hiking, camping, but I hate driving through it for 4-5 hours.
Definitely PA. I've done it twice. From Philly to Louisville and from Lexington to Jersey City. I couldn't believe how long the PA stretch takes.
Also did the MD route and the drive through MD felt long. But it could be because I got stuck in the Frostburg MD fog and I almost cried my whole way through it but didn't want to cry because then I'd see less and I didn't have any cell service to call anyone but that's the worst drive I've never done in my life. I'm from coastal LA where we got fog and lived in SF, but I've NEVER seen fog like that fog in Frostburg.
"Time Warp" stretches of interstate highway in the Southeast:
- I-40 from Nashville to Memphis
- I-16 from Macon to Savannah
- I-10 from Jacksonville to New Orleans
- I-85 from Atlanta to Mobile
- I-75 from Macon to Gainesville, FL
- I-55 from Memphis to Slidell, LA
- I-20 from Atlanta to Augusta
Uninteresting topography combined with lack of urban diversions conspire to make these stretches intolerably dull; an hour on any of these roads feels more like two.
All of these are mighty interesting compared to the I-5 through the San Joaquin Valley in California. Not a single house for 200 plus miles. Just huge, mechanical, un-charming farms and very beat up truck stops.
i always thought of South Carolina as a small state (it's 40th in land area) but I was surprised how long it took to get out of the state the first time I drove through it on I-26 and I-95. 4 hours without any traffic.
I always try to compare PA and Upstate NY. I personally find PA much more beautiful than Upstate NY although NY State always advertises TV commercials on how beautiful their state is.
PA drives are not irritating at all. You could be driving through a variety of trees, or seeing tall grass with lavender flowers and the rolling hills are fun to drive through. Also, I don't feel lost in the wilderness on PA roads, because I could all of the sudden be seeing large houses and seeing their beautiful backyards. So much variety. There are obviously some flat open lands in PA that seem a bit Midwestern, but no place is perfect. I am describing the last time I went to PA was when my parents were driving us from North Jersey to Lancaster area.
Upstate NY is irritating to me. I am describing the last two times, which was our trip from North Jersey to Vermont and from North Jersey to Toronto. Upstate NY's scenery was really bland and irritating enough to make me fall asleep, but with some picturesque mountains and rolling hills here and there. Even the state of NY has more nature available than what we get in crowded North Jersey, I personally think North Jersey's scenery wins.
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