Speed limits on freeway

At every fuel stop and every meal stop I always walk around the rig and check the temps...feel all the tires and hubs with the palm of my hand, and feel the brake drums with the back of my hand, and if tires, brakes, and hubs are warm (not overly hot), you are good for another few hundred miles. Then check again, repeat many times each day. Soon you will get a feel for the normal temps. 

Of course, at every fuel stop, check your tow vehicle's oil level, visually check the coolant reservoir, etc, and visually check trailer lights, wiggle the safety chains, observe bolts and fasteners on and around the hitch area, etc. You can do some of this at the pump, or pull off to the side before you leave, maybe after you grab a roller dog, a bag of chips, and a 44 OZ Pepsi for the road!

This all might seem off-topic but it relates to the reason for slowing down and taking your time...its not a cross country race.

BTW...Just kidding about the Pepsi...

We usually drive between 55 and 60 (I really mean I drive, since my wife doesn't) and I don't find it especially stressful.  Our virgin trip with our F-150 was from Las Vegas to home, a distance of about 400 miles, in high winds all the way and a mix of rain, ice, and snow for the last 1/3rd of the drive.  Though it was a bit tedious, I arrived home without being especially tired.  

Most of the time it's quite comfortable driving, even in the desert winds we often encounter.  I personally think that driving with a well balanced rig with adequate power and weight capacity is the key.  Driving on the edge of the weight capacity of your TV and with inadequate power makes it very stressful.  We were much closer to the TV capacity and power limits when we towed our 172 with our Dakota.  It was much more tiring to take long trips.   

We're leaving around the 1st of May to go to NY and are tentatively planning on 5 nights on the way.  I guess one of the nice things about traveling with your own hotel room in tow is that if you find that you don't want to go as far as you planned, you can always stop earlier along the way.  We'll see how it goes.

With all the folks who have gotten their vaccines coming out of their isolation, I suspect there will be traffic jams with cars and trucks with travel trailers in tow in the middle of Nowhere.

60-65mph and 350 miles with arrival timed to be in daylight seems to be the sweet spot.

Best drives were on good two- and four-lane state highways...less stress than interstate driving.  YMMV.

Originally posted by StephenH After a 10 hour trip turned into a 16 hour trip(before R-Pod days) followed a week later by a stroke, I do not do extended driving unless there is no other choice. I'm on an anticoagulant now to help prevent another stroke. We can by no means do the extended driving. If we cover 300 miles in a day, we count it good. We can do more, but no 500 to 600 miles. As has been said, you will learn what works for you.

This isn't a competition and there are no excuses needed.  I just wanted to make the point that there is a wider range of possibilities than those to which one person may limit themselves.

I'm old enough to retire but haven't yet, so I have a limited amount of time for vacations.  It's really hard to get two weeks off at once.  So if I want to go to Cape Breton (from Nashville), and I want to spend as much time as possible in Cape Breton, I feel like I need to put in long days on the road.  For me, it's worth it.  Maybe not wise, but it's how I want to do it.  Same with the Nashville to the Outer Banks trip.  I get as far down the road the first day as I can so that we can get to our campsite in Frisco early the second day.  We usually stop overnight somewhere in or around Wake Forest, coincidentally.

There are certainly other legitimate and more leisurely ways to travel.  Maybe when I retire and can take a trip that can be 2, or 3, or 4 weeks long I'll slow down and smell the roses along the way.  I have done several trips out west and in Mexico and Canada, sans Pod, with no grand destination.  We've followed our noses and had plenty of less than 200 mile days.  I like that kind of trip a lot too.  By "no destination" I mean we don't head out with an end point in mind. where we stay and from which we'll turn around and come back.  There are always a lot of sort of mini-destinations along the way.

TT