Road trip mileage

M

Macanudo

2,500+ Posts
How many miles a day would you drive on a long trip (2,000+ miles)? 500? 600?

I'm looking at this trip out of Alaska and I don't want to kill myself. At 60 miles an hour, I'm looking at 8-10 hours of driving a day. Since I think I'll be doing this before the Spring breakup, I'm guessing that averaging 60 miles an hour might be hard to do.

The first two days will be the worst. Those are the ones where there's significant gaps between places to stay. Just the first day present a challenge. Take it easy and drive around 500 miles and get to a small town with minimal places to stay. Or go for broke and drive 600 miles and end up in Whitehorse which is much larger.

Even if Spring has come, road conditions are going to be interesting until somewhere in the middle of British Columbia.
 
Just make sure that you have a flexible schedule and plenty of Red Bulls. Take a sleeping bag with you in case you get tired and want to take a quick 30 minute nap between towns. I would also take a roll of TP with you in the event that you need to drop a duece in the boonies. Lots of music is also a must. Does that area have satellite radio coverage?
 
On a long road trip, I shoot for 1,000 per day. I have gone 1,300 miles before (8 hours of it in driving rain). That was tough. When my head hit the pillow that night, I could still see the yellow lines go by.

A friend of mine made it from Austin to Halifax, Nova Scotia and back in 4 days without an air conditioner or cruise control (about 5,400 miles). His longest nonstop was Montreal to Dallas (1,750 miles).

500 miles a day is a cakewalk. My personal distance/speed record is Muleshoe TX to Lawrence KS (670 miles) in under 9 hours. That's an average of ~75 mph for NINE HOURS! I had to piss in a zip-lock bag to pull that one off.
 
Driving conditions in Alaska, especially before spring, are a bit different than they are in the lower 48.

Take your time.
 
There's some frozen moose poo about 50 feet from my front door. I have never seen the moose who leaves it. But he's out there.
 
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