Washington, DC to Madison, WI

I'm planning to move back to the Midwest this August and need some advice on how to break up my trip. I'm going to leave the DC area on the afternoon of August 14 and would like to be in Madison by 9:00 am on August 16. I plan on using 270N/I-70/I-76/I-80/I-94 for my route.

If I leave on the afternoon of the 14th,say 3:00 pm, how far can I realistically get the first day? I figure the bulk of the driving will occur on the 15 th with the lest small leg early on the 16th. Does anyone have some thoughts on how to break up the trip and where would be some good overnight stopping points along the way?

Thanks,

--Joel

I should also add that my goal is to get back by the morning of the 16th. I have to meet my shipping container with my goods that morning.

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

I think you're going to be in really good shape.

If you're on the road at 3, you could get to Pittsburgh pretty easily that evening. You'd be looking at 4 to 5 hours for the trip.

From there, you'd be about 600 miles from Madison, which can be done in a long day, or you could stop a little short in Rockford, Beloit, or Janesville, which will all get you to Madison within an hour or so. This would actually be via I-90, which is faster than I-94, if you really want to do I-94, then you'd want to look at the western suburbs of Milwaukee like Brookfield and Waukesha. If you stayed near downtown or by the Airport in MKE you could pretty easily get caught up in morning traffic.

Welcome!

If you drive to Youngstown OH, that's 300 miles, and about 5 to 6 hours. That leaves 550 miles, which is 10 to 12 hours, and you could make it all the way in to Madison on the 15th, provided you get an early enough (or late enough) start to miss afternoon rush hour around Chicago. Best way around is get off the IN toll road at Burns Harbor (Exit 21), take I-80 to I-355 to I-290 to I-90.

If you don't have an EZ-Pass or equivalent, you should get one. It will help with all the toll roads you will be using, it will work all the way across PA, OH, IN, and IL.

Thanks to both of you for the advice. When I was looking at a map earlier I thought about taking the I-80 route to avoid Chicago. I have no desire to be on the Ryan Expressway at 4:00 pm in the afternoon.

I'll probably stop near Pittsburgh and then push on the next day. No big deal if I have to overnight near Rockford on the 2nd day.