Best I 95 Travel Days

I don't know if there's a best day, but in my experience (many, many trips between DC and NY) the worst are Friday and Sunday.

We make frequent trips from Cape Cod down to Philly to visit our daughter and grandkids. I-95 is the worst on weekdays so we prefer to get an early start on a Saturday or Sunday morning. The weekend has been good for us but it can get heavy as you hit the middle to late afternoon. We avoid the George Washington Bridge and the always trafficky Cross Bronx Expressway by taking exit 11 on the NJ Pike for the Garden State Parkway. Take the GSP up to I-287 and go over the Tappen Zee Bridge and then down to I-95 in Connecticut.

Early Saturday mornings are the best times to set out--no rush hour, usually no construction. We've found that getting yourself down 91 from VT to the Mass Pike West, then picking up NYS Thruway (87 as poster said above) or the Taconic Parkway is usually a breeze. Head for Tappan Zee Bridge then Garden State Parkway. This alternative alleviates a huge amount of stress even though milewise, it's longer. There's much less traffic and crazy driving. Having said that, the trip is a bear no matter how you do it.

In conversations with workers in service areas in CT, I've learned that Mondays and Tuesdays are slow days. I've made the Philadelphia-Boston run of 95 many, many times. I've got it down to a science so that I hit 95 around 9:30 or 10am.

2nd the I 81 route...just did it last Friday from Baltimore ( we were heading to Maine, so we took 84 E, but 81 was a nice drive...a little longer, but no tolls or traffic jams.

I've driven many times between DC and Boston and find that Saturday/Sunday mornings around 6 are the best times to set out. Drunk people have hopefully gone home already and there are fewer trucks.

+1 to the 83,81,87 route. This way also takes you through a few great cities (ie. Charlottesville, VA) that you might have otherwise missed, and is a stunningly beautiful ride along certain portions (I don't know of any part of 95 that I would call "aesthetically pleasing"). Skipping the Maryland->NJ portion also saves you about $20 in tolls, for what that's worth.

It's more about time of day, in my experience (CTMD), than particular days. Although, as a general rule, Tuesday is best and it goes down from there. If you're doing the Turnpike route, you want to avoid rush hour around the metropolises, and listen to the traffic alert stations (their frequencies are posted). I've often diverted to Pennsylvania when the ends of the 'Pike get jammed up. My rule of thumb is if the backup is more than half an hour to fortyfive minutes, the detour is worth it (at least southbound, I don't normally bother northbound for some reason.)>