We are going with 6 & 13 years old kids on a road trip from Dallas, TX to Washington, D.C. this Spring Break,9 days. Want to stay somewhere @ night suggation. ( smoky mountain/sightseeing stops ),Road status near Washington, D.C during mid march.
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We are going with 6 & 13 years old kids on a road trip from Dallas, TX to Washington, D.C. this Spring Break,9 days. Want to stay somewhere @ night suggation. ( smoky mountain/sightseeing stops ),Road status near Washington, D.C during mid march.
Hello Travelholic,
The +1,300 miles between Dallas and DC is at or in excess of a two-day total mileage recommendation here within the RTA Forums. You don't say how much time you're willing to spend on the outbound or return leg, but in any event you're looking at 4 to 6 days just for the out-and-back.
While you can see profile of the Smokies from I-40 and I-81 in eastern Tennessee, they're a bit out of the way, and in March may well be largely inaccessible due to snow and ice. Anything can happen between now and then, weather wise, but so far this winter looks painfully similar to the last, when deep snow and ice ravaged the NC mountains, the parks herein, and the Blue Ridge Parkway. Long segments of the Parkway were closed for weeks on end, and well into March and even April.
For a more readily-accessible peek at the Appalachians, specifically the Blue Ridge Mountains, consider routing a section of your up or back along the Skyline Drive (SD) or its de facto southern extension, the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP). The SD and BRP run along the crest of the Blue Ridge between I-66 west of DC, past Charlottesville, Va and on to Roanoke, VA, with I-81 but a short distance west and US 29 just to the east all of the way (well, rather farther east from Charlottesville to Roanoke, but you get the idea). That gives the traveler a look at the mountains without having to invest a great deal of travel time. Both the SD and the BRP in Virginia are subject to snow/ice closure, but less so than the much higher-elevation segments of the BRP in the Blue Ridge and Smokies of NC. Plus, your family might enjoy traveling the 105 mile SD from I-66 to I-64, a jaunt of 25 miles east on I-64 to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, then a jump back west over the mountains to I-81 for the trip home. I'd resist the urge to use US 29 from the DC area down to Charlottesville as it has become a heavily suburbanized collection of stoplights and small towns over the last couple of decades.
Have a safe and enjoyable Spring Break RoadTrip!
Foy
Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!
Sorry, but there's frightfully little in your post to hang onto in order to give you any meaningful advice for a RoadTrip, a very personal adventure. Stuff I'd need to know at a minimum would include whether this is a one-way or round trip, what your preferences are in terms of things to do, what the point of this trip is, how you want to split your time between driving and sightseeing and between getting there and being ]there in Washington. I can tell you that you are certainly going to need more than one place to stop on your drive to Washington - this is far more than a two day trip.
AZBuck