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My 3 daughters and I are planning a round trip drive from Philadelphia to Rochester to pick up our 2 new puppies. It will be a long day, but bearable since we're all sharing the driving. We've never done a trip like this so any general advice would be great.
Also, since we're so close to Lake Ontario, we want to snap a few pictures and grab some lunch by the lake. Any recommendations?
Welcome!
I would highly recommend you break this into a 2 day trip, especially if you want to spend some time in Rochester and go to the lake. You are looking at about a 700 mile round trip, which is a bit much for one day anyway. This is 6+ hours each way, plus whatever down time you have in Rochester.
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Yes, I suppose you could get from Philly to Rochester and back in a day if that's all you wanted to do. But at 680 miles round trip, plus picking up the puppies, plus gas and meal stops, plus some snaps of the lake, plus extra stops for the puppies (whom I presume will not be house/car trained), You'll have to leave around sunrise and won't get home until after sunset. And it will cost you. You'll have to use both the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike up to Scranton and the New York State Thruway from Syracuse to Rochester, and pay for them again on the way home. The connection between them would be I-81 from Scranton to Syracuse. Such a drive might just, and I mean just, fall within the realm of 'bearable', but it will by no means be enjoyable.
I would instead urge you to make this an overnight Girls RoadTrip if at all possible, and to take some more scenic and relaxing roads up and back. If you take just an hour more each way and stay the night in the Rochester area, then you can have - I think - a much more rewarding trip. One such route would be to leave Philly on the Schuykill Expressway up to King of Prussia and get on US-422 to Reading. There connect with US-222 to complete the bypass of Reading and leave town on PA-183 west and northbound. Near Schuylkill Haven switch over to PA-901 north to near Mount Carmel and PA-54 north. Just north of Danville hop on I-80 west for a bit to exit 240 and take US-15 north to Corning NY. Use I-86/NY-17 west and then I-390 to Rochester when it splits off.
The thing is, by taking the 'back' roads rather than the Turnpikes, you'll save enough on tolls and the extra cost of food and fuel on roads where you're a captive clientele, to almost pay for a hotel room in Rochester. And you'll turn the trip from 'bearable' to an adventure to be remembered. Another benefit is that you'll have many more opportunities on the way back to stop at state and local parks to let the puppies (and yourselves) out to play. If you decide to go this route, let us know and we can suggest some good sites to consider on the way up and back
In the Rochester area there are a couple of handy lakeside parks where you can get some good pix, Durand Eastman Park in 'downtown' Rochester and Webster/Kanatota Park just northeast of town.
AZBuck