Welcome to this forum, your 24/7 owners manual.

Safest freeway speed is whatever you are comfortable with, as long as you don't go over the max. legal speed.  We have towed our 177 mainly with a couple different Explorers ('08 and '13) and most recently a '17 F-150 for over 34,000 miles just using a Curt anti-sway bar on each with no issues.

We find it good for our bodies to take a break after 2.5 to 3 hours driving just to get out and stretch  legs for a bit and refreshing the mind as well as keeping us more alert IMHO.

Pulling a trailer will place a bit more effort and wear on your body than just driving your Tacoma solo.  For us 450 miles is not unreasonable when driving across the midwest, but would be a lot going through the Rockies.  Your body will let you know when you have had enough and it is time to call it a day. 

We usually travel 60-65 on the highway, rarely do we ever pass anybody at that speed which is fine with me, I am not in a race and certainly love to see God's creation as we travel across this country.  After 10 years now of towing our 177 there was only one time when we decided to wait out a storm as winds were over 40 mph and we were observing a lot of trailers swaying enough, as well as smart semi drivers pulling off onto the shoulder to make our decision easier - that was in Kansas.  Enjoy your journey!

WDH with sway control or electronic sway control such as the Hayes Sway-Master. I recommend it as it does work and makes it a lot safer. This is important with the wind. Now, the RPod is better than the 5th wheels because it is lower and does not catch as much wind. Better does not mean that you won't get pushed. It is just that you won't get pushed as hard.  Again, the Hayes Sway-Master or equivalent such as that from Tuson are very helpful. You already have sway control, but the electronic sway control is for those situations where regular sway control might not be enough. I encountered one such situation which is why I take the belt and suspenders approach.

You are optimistic on the 450 miles. Plan on between 300 and 400. You will want to stop for meals and other necessary stops. You can get the 450, but you will figure out what you are most comfortable with as you go.

Yes, check the tires carefully. Check the pressure regularly. Check the lug nuts to be sure they are tight. If the wheels were off, check at 50 miles, 100 miles, and then you can start with checking daily. Have a torque wrench for this.

I use the RV Parky app on my phone to help find free places to stay. It has been very useful.

Drive safely. Remember that the journey is part of the adventure. Relax and get there safely.

Welcome :-) 60 - 65 mph top speed, even when you can go faster. Things happen fast with the two vehicles connected to each other. You have to watch behind and around you all the time when traveling 15+ mph slower than the other traffic and it is tiring.

    My DW (dear wife) calls it a day around 350 miles. She does not drive, but can only sit for so long unless there's a good reason to go further.

    You will be stopping more often for gas on the freeway. Two lanes are not usually as hard on gas, but still cut your mpg's. The non-freeways are less stressful, but with your goal of picking up and bringing the new TT home, understandable that you don't have the time to waste.

    We are fans of the Equalizer 4 hitches properly set up for wind/sway control. We were on I-15 in Idaho when strong head winds cut our top speed to 50-55 mph at 5000 rpm. We got off the highway and put it up for the day.

    The DW likes to have 2 days in one spot every 4 days or so just to take a break. Have fun!

As retirees, we do most of our traveling in multi-week time frames. We have found that ideally, stop every 3-4 days for 2 nights at the same place for grocery, laundry and other domestic chores.  Plus, just relax and recuperate if you have the time.

Agree that the journey is just as important as the destination in most cases.

We have found (in most cases) that campsites are available Sunday night thru Thursday nights pretty easily.  We can travel then and stay for one nighters and move on if that is the plan.  We try to stay Friday/Saturday in the same place if possible with reservations or arrive early Friday morning for "First come, first Serve" sites.

After a couple of trips, you will learn what works for you and will develop a rhythm. that's part of the appeal.

Travel safe

Vann

One of the great things about these apps for finding campsites is that we CAN play it by ear and don't have to sweat booking a site every night, since we won't really know how far we'll get. And another great thing is getting advice from folks who know a lot more than we do! Grateful for your thoughts.

How far you go in a day is a very personal thing.  My wife won't drive with the trailer hooked up, but I routinely go 500 to 600 miles in a day if we're trying to get to a destination. I'm not bragging at all -- just saying what works for one person doesn't mean everyone has the same limits.

The trailer does really slow things down. A 600 mile day can mean 14 hours on the road (with time off for pit stops, gas, lunch, etc.)

TT

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.

I do try to have food prepared and gear stowed in such a way that there is minimal work once I stop so I find this much easier than a hotel. No checking in, acclimate the dog, carrying stuff or sleeping in a strange bed.

Welcome to the forum. There's lifetimes of learning here. :)

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

It is something not widely known that not all states allow towing at the same speed as when not towing. For the most part, I don't see many RVs pulled over for speeding. However, it is prudent to be aware of, and comply with the towing speed limits just in case something happens.

Accident? 

I own a 179. Sounds like you are buying one out of state. Make sure your black tank hanger is secure before you hit the road. Several people on the forum have had the same issue I have had with the hanger failing when traveling. I would bring some wire with me to reinforce the hanger for the trip home, then fix it properly when home.  

In fact, the estimated travel times on (for example) Google Maps are much more accurate since you'll be going much closer to the posted speed limit.

Pilots know all about 'getthereitis'...and as a truck driver for about 40 years....I'm familiar with it also. 

Quite a saga.  Wonder how long repairs would take had this happened these days...

Since there is more awareness/training in this area in aviation than other occupations I'd expect that it is very common cause of over the road accidents and other fields as well. 

I'd hope my surgeon was trained in this area if I was on the table. Would that be called takeitoutnomatter whattitis?

The owner of the small fleet of trucks was pissed that his good friend and employee with a LOT more years of experience than I did at the time, jackknifed and put the truck in the ditch, an hour after I had gone thru the same conditions with no trouble at all. At the time it was my first winter season up north as a truck driver. 

My boss said I made his friend 'look bad'....

This same bias affects pilots..."hey that other plane landed OK on the ice with poor braking and a slight tailwind....how bout we try it also?"

Ooops.

Driving long stretches in the midwest and west is much easier than the east and southeast - less traffic except near cities, and fewer curves. I dont think that 450 is unreasonable under the  right conditions. If you start out early, thats 8 hours driving plus  stops, so maybe 10 hours or so. We  prefer to drive less  and there's always stuff to see. But we're retired and have no schedule - not everyone has that luxury.

One of the popular sayings is "There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there aren't any old-bold pilots."

I had a motorcycle once. I got rid of it before I learned the statistic that there are only two kinds of motorcycle drivers--those who have had an accident and those who are going to have an accident.

But there are no such things as 'accidents'.

Times they are a changin'...

How powerful is one word? Traffic safety activists are among those who believe words influence people in tremendous ways. Because of this belief, several advocacy groups are fighting to have the word "crash" replace "accident" when referring to automobile collisions. Many people believe that saying "accident" makes it wrongly appear as though crashes are inevitable rather than preventable. In truth, the majority of auto fatalities and injuries could be prevented if it were not for drunk driving, distracted driving, poor road conditions, speeding or negligence by one of the drivers....

https://www.sidgilreath.com/learn/car-crash-replace-accident.html

Search "crash vs accident" and you'll find many hits just like this one.

Most "accidents" involve some level of carelessness or negligence in the root cause, but lack an intent to result in some injury.  Some levels of carelessness or negligence can be criminally sanctioned, while on the other extreme of the spectrum, some result only in the obligation to compensate the injured party who suffered a loss due to someone's negligence.  Finally, at the far end of the spectrum are events that one cannot anticipate that result in injuries, such a boulder being shaken loose by an earth quake and rolling down a hill, crushing your rPod as you tow it along the road well within the speed limit.  It was not caused by anyone's carelessness in acting or failing to act.  It is simply a matter of s**t happens.

We all consider the context of the event when we use the term "accident" and are not really confused by it.  It's hardly worth the bother to worry about using another more PC term in its place.

As is pointed out by many of the individuals/entities that are advocating the use of "crash" instead of "accident", words have meaning.  The term "accident" implies to many people that the event was no one's fault.  In many (most?) cases this is simply not true.

That ain't "PC" in my book.  It's more an acknowledgement of reality.

There are often accidents, or whatever you want to call them, that are avoidable, but I've hit a couple of deer and I swear, one of them was unavoidable on my part.  The deer could have easily avoided it, it jumped in front of me from out of nowhere and hit me (sic) within a second of first coming in sight.  I wasn't speeding.

All that said, I generally agree with Offgrid that many, many, "accidents" can be prevented through education, training, good judgement, etc.  I don't mean to exclude myself; I just haven't figured out 25  years later what I could have reasonably done differently with that deer.  It was really like the deer decided to commit suicide and pulled it off without a flaw.

TT

Fortunately, for both the company and the insurance carrier, none of the accidents or hits were ever turned in to the insurance carrier.  Fortunately the majority of the accidents were toward the front of the truck which had a substantial bumper and sat up rather high.

With my current vehicles I am quite certain there would be substantial damage were another 'encounter' to take place, even with the 2017 F-150 as its stock front bumper is pretty chincey.