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Me and my wife are driving to Georgia for t-giving and will be spending time there and Florida. My job lets out at 2pm the day before and we are going to leave then. I know this is a huge travel day. Will we be in traffic at that time? How far south will this traffic continue. Will it make a difference if I try to leave at 1pm instead of 2pm? Thanks for any Advice
There is no real way to even guess what traffic is going to be like. It depends on how many are traveling, where they are going, their speed, if there are delays for accidents or construction, your speed, the weather.
You can get an idea of the travel time from google maps or map quest but that is just an estimate and anything beyond that is impossible to even guess.
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Once you get clear of the NY Metro's traffic you should experience heavy but steady traffic as you continue south. The next major bottleneck will be the DC Metro and that can go either way. DC is a crap shoot any day of the week and depending on what time you pass through and if there had been an accident within the last 6 hours all effects how you ride will be.
Beyond Washington you will probably experience areas of open road and total stoppages through to Richmond.
You will hit a ton of traffic if you leave on Wednesday. Pack some snacks and your patience. If you are going to GA you are in for a middle of the night arrival. I have a neighbor here in NC who is from LI and they once travelled up to NY for Tgiving. They got to Staten Island and the traffic was so bad they actually started talking about turning around and coming back.
They are widening the NJ Tpke at the southern end and will stop traffic to move traffic cones/barrels/rearrange lanes as the mood strikes. We were stopped dead there for 30 minutes last summer.
As VAYankee said DC traffic is always a crapshoot. I know someone who went up to DC from where we live in NC a couple weeks ago and it took her 7 hours to get home. It once took us almost 3 hours to get from Woodbridge, VA to Fredericksburg, VA. You literally cannot imagine - you can sit on I95 completely stopped, not moving an inch, for 15-20 minutes at a time. It is unreal.
Which brings me to my next point - gas up the car as often as you can.
If you can, take off Wednesday and leave Tuesday. Even Tuesday has gotten bad. But better than Wednesday.
Listen to VaYankee and Twingles. In fact, I would work til 2, lolly gag the rest of the day away and take a nap and then get on the road around 9 pm. You will avoid a lot of headache.
I wouldn't leave until night before Thanksgiving. Traffic will be horrendous getting out of NY and NJ. Then you'll have DC to deal with. If flying is not an option, I would drive through the night.
One method which has worked in the past getting to Richmond is to go out into Pennsylvania and pick up 91 and go south which will keep you out of most of the NJ traffic and keep you west of Philadelphia, Baltimore and DC until you get back to 95.
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