Seattle to San Jose, then I-80 to NY

Hello,

I am moving from Seattle, WA to upstate NY in July and decided to make it a 3,800 mile road trip!

My itinerary is looking something like this right now:

Day 1: Seattle, WA -> San Jose, CA (840 miles) (Kinda just wanna power through this section)
Day 2: San Jose, CA -> Elko, NV (540 miles) (any better place to stop along the I-80 route in NV?)
Day 3: Elko, NV > Salt Lake City, UT (227 miles)
Day 4: Salt Lake City, UT -> Denver, CO (540 miles)
Day 5: Denver, CO -> Omaha, NE (540 miles)
Day 6: Omaha, NE -> Des Moines, IA -> Chicago, IL (500 miles)
Day 7: Chicago, IL -> Cleveland, OH (347 miles) (this is where I stop following I-80)
Day 8: Cleveland, OH -> Syracuse, NY (350 miles)

It is the first time I ever plan/do such a long road trip and I had a few questions for those with more experience road tripping:

1. How many average miles can I expect to cover in any given day while driving on I-80? I have heard that a comfortable pace is about 52 mph (including stops), which is about 520 miles if I drive for 10 hours/day. In other words, is my itinerary above doable enough to leave some hours every day for sightseeing and such?

2. What are the best times during the day to be driving and the best ones to be sightseeing, etc.?

3. Any recommendations for any stops are greatly appreciated. I especially can't seem to find much along the I-80 route in Wyoming, Nebraska, and Iowa.

Any other tips/recommendations are also appreciated.

Thank you!

Hello and welcome to the RTA forums !

1) Your sight seeing will be very limited and those first 3 days need to be averaged out evenly. Not only is driving 840 miles in one day unsafe due to fatigue setting in, to do it at the start of a multi day road trip is a sure way to make the whole trip miserable and more importantly dangerous, especially with another 540 miles the following day.

2) Try and get an early start after a good nights rest and pull up early evening so you can relax and enjoy a good meal. You won't see much before and after dark !

3) Before we make suggestions I think first you need to rethink your trip.

Unless there is a good reason for going so far south I would think twice before adding a thousand miles to your already limited time frame. Why 'power' all the way through seeing nothing and then give yourself a bunch of miles the following day which will be all driving and as said that first day is really a no go. There is plenty to see on a more direct route that would make your trip more relaxing and give you time to see more. Where that is would depend on your interests as you have a whole bunch of City's listed, for me I would be looking at places like Glacier, Yellowstone, Badlands Np's and the like.

As Dave said, trying to start your trip by "powering through" an 840 mile drive is a horrifically bad idea. Not only will you be as dangerous on the road as a drunk driver by the end of the day, that fatigue will carry over for basically the first half of your trip - not only making you an unsafe driver in the following days, but really making it impossible for this to be anything other than an really unpleasant death march of a trip - even though your following days would otherwise be more manageable.

I also don't understand why you're even going to San Jose in the first place - it's a gigantic detour out of the way, and it's not like you're going to have any time to see or do anything there at this pace anyway.

If San Jose is a "must stop" for you, that's fine, but an overnight stop is mandatory for a safe trip - Redding is the absolute farthest you should consider going on day one. That leaves you a half day of driving to San Jose on day 2 - and then you'll have the rest of the day to do whatever it is that has you driving 900 miles out of your way to get there. (When you arrive in San Jose, you'll actually be farther away from Syracuse than when you started!)

Along those same lines, but on a much smaller scale, Denver is also a significant detour out of your way. This leg certainly is possible to drive, but with 550 mile days on each side, you're not really going to have time to do much anything there either.

Even with speed limits of 75 and 80 mph it's difficult to average much above 55 mph during a day's travel. (I just re-proved this to myself on a run from Colorado to Seattle and back)

Fuel, bio-breaks, lunch, short walk/stretch sessions - all subtract from the average.
Dealing with city traffic will drop the average even more.

Plan for averaging 50 mph across the light traffic stretches and a 10 hr driving day and you have 500mi/day for planning purposes.

FWIW, I find I-90 to be a more hospitable "cruising" interstate highway than I-80. The I-90 also includes several scenic diversions along the way but it appears you are more of a "business trip" than a scenic trip, in which the I-90 also is much shorter than taking the I-80. There is no shortage of hotel stops along the I-90.

Let's qualify that - via San Jose I-80 makes sense, leaving SJ out I-90 makes sense.