How far do you tow in a day?

[Robbins734]

I focus on travel time. I have a 17' Escape. When I am towing I usually will travel for 5 to 8 hours. It takes a lot more concentration.

[AC0GV]

It depends on a lot of things, I do not like to go over 400 miles on a good day. Factory tires are a limitation as they are 60 MPH max. I recently went to faster tires to make more miles in a day for a long trip. I wanted to get out of the mid west to spend time in the south and east.

[steve dunham]

Originally Posted by AC0GV

It depends on a lot of things, I do not like to go over 400 miles on a good day. Factory tires are a limitation as they are 60 MPH max. I recently went to faster tires to make more miles in a day for a long trip. I wanted to get out of the mid west to spend time in the south and east.

I only tow over 60 MPH when I am trying to get back to the Midwest ( Wisconsin) Too much to see ,enjoy in the Midwest along with the great weather

[AC0GV]

Originally Posted by steve dunham

I only tow over 60 MPH when I am trying to get back to the Midwest ( Wisconsin) Too much to see ,enjoy in the Midwest along with the great weather

Well said, I did that also. Generally when I'm staying in the mid west I drive about 60 MPH and get about 15 MPG, but on this trip I drove 70 MPH and got 12 MPG. It costs money to get that extra 100 miles per day.

[Ttocs M]

When planning a trip, I pick the adventures, scenery that I want, then the miles and est # hours between these key stops, and then find suitable camping locations between the key stops. Doesn't matter how many miles, but what I want to see and do. I limit to 6 hrs or less driving in one day if a long haul to my next adventure; or it could be only 2-3 hours. I usually spend a minimum of 3 nights at key stops if there's enough hiking, paddlingn sightseeing, friends to visit to do.

[SandyNorthFL]

As someone new to towing, and having some stiff joints, 5-6 hours driving time or 250-300 miles is good for us. Our trip home was 325 and that was a good distance.

In the beginning learning to tow takes more out of you - extra attention and vigilance may save you an incident. I anticipate as I get more comfortable I'll be more likely to do a 400-500 mile day if the itinerary called for it.

[Timber Wolf]

Max 63mph, a couple of hour and a half to max two hour segments before lunch. Another 1 1/2 to 2 hours after lunch to camp.

[Jann Todd]

Originally Posted by MSFrancis

How far do Scamp and other fiberglass campers tow in a day? We are new and soon to get our 13' Scamp. As we plan/fantasize about future trips we've realized that we have no idea how many miles a day (or hours per day) are realistic. Are we right in thinking that it is very different than a road trip in our SUV without anything to tow where we can average 75mph if we wanted? Thanks in advance for the insight!

Figure your average time will be about 45-50 miles per hour for a full day and that includes, lunch, gas, bathroom breaks, etc. We drive 58MPH since over 60 costs us in gas mileage. So figure for yourself what time you want to leave, how long you want to drive, what time you want to shut down, if you're going some place in a hurry, just want to enjoy the scenery and side trips and other things. Each person is different. We like to get up around 8-9 and leave around 9-10. We like to shut down about 5 if it is our destination. If we just want to stop to eat and sleep in a Walmart or other non-campground place we stop about 6 or 7PM and leave about 8AM next day. Some days we've hit 500 miles other days 200 miles. Even for us each day is different. We look for stuff to do every day while on the road. Maybe an antique store, museum, covered bridge, etc. Just something to break up the day. We usually figure on being gone 3-4 weeks if we can. We don't set a special day to be home if we don't have to. So what is realistic for you may not be for someone else. I can't see speeding down the road for 12-16 hours in a day but some on this site seems to do that. Someone that drives 600 miles in a day will have to spend at least that long on the road and drive faster than is safe as far as I am concerned.

[Radar1]

We like to keep it around 250 - 300 miles per day (retired). When towing, we keep our speed down to about 62 MPH max, and there are additional stresses/worries when towing also. You have extra tires to worry about, less rearward visibility, slower acceleration, need a bigger opening when changing lanes, etc.
If our destination is our driveway at home, we have been known to go 500 miles knowing that we can sneak through Atlanta traffic at a late hour when traffic is much lighter (although we did 796 miles last month due to great traffic and weather conditions and found there are very few cars on the Atlanta beltway at 2 AM when we got home).
Today was one of those days where we pressed it home. Had coffee at the campground in VA this morning with Walt (who posted above) and arrived home in GA tonight after getting to our local Saturday night church service on the way, right at 400 miles.
If weather was yucky and/or traffic bad, we were prepared to stop halfway though.

[Daniel A.]

I never think about it in terms of miles only hours that being said 5-6 hours a day is plenty but I'm also retired.



Almost all my travel is on mountain roads with lots of turns I did one day this past summer on the road for nine hours and all it did was remind me of why I prefer 5 hours.

[Defenestrator]

I'd consider 200 miles a nice easy day. Time to stop and see things, or get a late start, or maybe do something interesting once we arrive. Or time for something to go wrong at some point and get fixed.

400 miles is a full day. It's a sustainable pace as long as nothing big goes wrong.

600 miles is a very long day. I've done ~1250 miles in two days with a cold, and it was not fun. A third day probably wouldn't have been possible.

[steve67]

For us, and with our sights on a destination, we plan our overnight stops for around a 5 pm. That gives us time to set up, cook, eat, cleanup, and go for walk before retiring for the night. We find we're fresh and ready for an early start in the morning. During the travel times we are generous with our breaks (retired) if there's something of interest along the way.

[jimiller5]

We follow the rule of 3. 300 miles or stop by 3:00.

[patrick crawford]

this is not originally my idea but i've adopted it and it works great for me. i call it the "2, 4, 6 rule" for travel.

200 miles
4 hours
6 pm.

which ever comes first i find a place to park it. yes, i'm retired and "hurry" is no longer in my vocabulary.

p@

[Kevin A]

As many others have noted, retirement leads to a more leisurely drive. When working with limited vacation time, we would tow our 16' UHaul at 60 mph and often drive 600 miles in a day to get to south Florida or western South Dakota. Now, pulling a 28' Bigfoot Silver Cloud, we still go about 60 mph but try to stay at or under 350 miles per day. We usually figure the time based on total miles divided by 50 mph. We also always have a reserved spot waiting for us at the end of the day. Works for us! Our 1600 mile trip to South Padre Island last year didn't wear me out driving spread out over 5 days.

[redbarron55]

We typically drive 5 - 6 hours a day and tend to find a rv park as a destination at this distance.
We will stop when She Who Must Be Obeyed says so.
She is more comfortable in our new to us 2012 VW Touareg so will travel further.
However on our last travel day on this last transcontinental trip we decided to drive from Buda, TX straight through to Navarre FL in one long 12 hour day. 700 or so miles.
Ready to be home, I guess.

[Cliff Hotchkiss]

Done a couple 700 mile days, no fun. 400 a day is what’s usually tops for me and I don’t like to do them back to back. We try to stop at a place a couple days anyway, unless of course it’s a Cracker Barrel or Walmart 😎
Speed limits and conditions have a lot to do with how far I want to go in a single day also.

[thrifty bill]

A couple of recommendations:

1. Make your first few trips short, like 100 miles or less. I am 25 miles from Pisgah campground on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It’s my go to local trip where I test modifications and repairs. And at $10 a night with the senior pass, it’s cheap!

2. If you haven’t towed, worrying about maintaining your lane can really stress you out. Good mirrors help a lot. Worry + stress = fewer miles per day!

One thing I like about almost molded FG trailers and my F150 is they are almost identical in width. In fact with my mirrors extended, the width of my mirrors are wider than the trailer. So if the mirrors fit, the trailer fits.

As RVs get wider and wider, maintaining proper lane position is more work and more stress!

You also have to always be thinking. When you pull in for gas, will you have adequate room to get through and turn around? Don’t pull into a situation without first knowing your exit path! Friends of mine did a u turn on the Blue Ridge Parkway with their 70 foot long set up (motorcoach plus tow behind). Mistake! Even with just the length of my F150 with the Escape trailer behind, I’m about 40 feet long overall.

[Bryan L.]

Being in Kansas and trying to get to National Parks puts me in the minority here. We drive fast and far. Regularly close to 80mph with our Ford Expedition breaking the wind for up to ten hours a day. With limited time off work it's what we have to do.

[EricAllyn]

We go by the trip plans we make -- what are we looking to see...
We have been the I-55, I 44 road for over 50 years, watching it get built as a kid, to travel home as an adult. We often drive late into the night, I don't mind night driving, and a lot less traffic through cities. St. Louis at 2am is easy, not so much at 5pm. Going across west Texas, there is no scenery change, or really much to see, same with North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana. Corn fields look the same in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska. There are fun things to see if you search, but most aren't more than several hours. I have left Cheyenne Wy and made a supper stop in Cedar Rapids Ia with a friend, and slept at home in Chicago, but it was really a hard day.



I think about distance and travel differently now that I am retired, but still like to take bigger cities either 1-3pm or 10pm+ and often just pull into a rest area for a quick 7-8 hrs if I am really trying to make distance. When doing that we often go through drive through and eat on the road, and limit stops as much as possible.



FWIW