Raad Trip = NYC - Niagara Falls - New Orleans

Hi All,

We are a couple of guys trying to do a road trip in 3rd week of October from NYC to New Orleans via Niagara Falls. We will be leaving on the 18th of October and our plan is to reach New Orleans by 21st. We are used to long drives so this shouldn't be a problem for us plus we can share the driving duties.

We would need your help in gas estimates, weather predictions, toll estimates and best route possible. We would like to be on the straight routes and not detour much as we are short on time. Please give us your feedback as to what we can see on our way during this drive.

Thank you.

Welcome to RTA!

You will have time to spend a night at Niagara, plus some of the next day. It's just over a 2 day drive from Niagara to New Orleans.

The total drive is about 1700 miles, you can use the RTA Fuel Cost Calculator. You need to know your car's average gas mileage, use $2.50 a gallon to be safe.

Weather cannot be predicted till a couple days in advance.

"Best" route is the route that you want to take. Most efficient route would be:

Whatever works for you to I-80 to I-380 to I-81 to I-86 to I-390 to the Thruway to I-290 to I-190.

Retrace your steps to the Thruway, I-90 to I-271 to I-71 to I-65 to I-20 to I-59 to I-10.

Tolls, once you get out of NYC, should be less than $10 as long as you don't take the Thruway all the way from NYC to Niagara.

If you want to visit the Canadian side of the falls, you will all need passports or enhanced driver's licenses.

Thanks for your reply...we are also planning to drive back from new orleans to nyc...do you think we can do that in a day?

New Orleans to New York is over 1,300 miles by the most direct route. That's a two and a half day drive, maybe two if you pushed yourselves just beyond what is legally permissible for professional long-haul drivers in the US. But one day? Never. And don't fall for the old canards that having two drivers will let you make 'better time' or allow one to sleep while the other drives. Both are simply not true. Having multiple drivers actually slows you down, since you not only have to stop when one needs to, but when the other does as well in addition to the stops the car requires. And each stop takes longer, governed by whoever is slowest at that stop. And you simply cannot get any meaningful sleep in a moving car, certainly not the sort needed to produce the alertness required to let you operate two tons of machinery at highway speeds and in traffic.

You need to plan at least two full days for the return from New Orleans to New York, and that's with absolutely no stops other than fuel, food, and bathroom breaks. AND you need to get a full ten hours off the road at night - an hour to unwind, eight hours of solid sleep in a quiet non-moving bed, and another hour to get up and ready to go the next morning.

AZBuck

"Best" way back from Nola to NYC is I-10/I-59/I-75/I-40/I-81/I-78. No tolls till you get near NYC.