alternate route from Dayton,OH to Sarasota, Fl

[Elizabeth Bollow]

Hi,all. Last Spring we drove to Florida for Spring Break. The drive down was okay, but the drive home, one week after Easter, was horrendous. It was bumper to bumper traffic the entire way home. There was one hour where we only went 19 miles! We basically took I75 the whole way there. It's the only mapping I can find on MapQuest, Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, MapBlast, etc. Does anyone have an alternate route they can recommend? Thanks a bunch.

[PNW Judy]

While I-75 sure looks like the most direct route, just looking at an atlas reveals dozens of potential routes you can take. They would add miles but they will give you alternative scenery to see and places to explore.

I would suggest getting a good atlas just tracing with your finger different, potential routes. Look for things of interest to see and do along the way. Once you have decided on a couple of alternatives, you can go to Mapquest, MapBlast, and all the other sites and force them to route you along these alternative routes by putting in stops along the way. This will let you see the estimated miles/hours to travel to see if these alternatives are do-able in the time you want to allow.

Remember, you don't have to stay on interstates. The various backroads could make for a very interesting trip!

If you want suggestions, I've never driven most of that area. Just a tad in Florida and Alabama. Hopefully somebody here with more expereince there can give you some suggestions.

Oh, and you might do a search through the forums here to see if somebody has asked similar questions before. It should point you to some ideas.