Driving from Northern Illinois any tips????

[Bubbie Girl]

We will be leaving in 3 weeks and driving from Northern Illinois (close to Rockford/Freeport area) and would love to here any tips from anyone who may have driven that lately. We plan to leave around 2 in the afternoon and hope to get through Illinois that day. Do you think we will make it to Florida the next day?? Any construction anywhere? Thanks for any help you can give.

[Itchy]

We just drove down the last of May from the St Louis area.

We left around 4:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday and arrived at DW around 10 am Sunday. About 16 hrs driving straight thru.

Trust me I do not recommend this. I am still trying to recover from the drive.

I would find a place to stop about 1/2 way thru and spend the night. We stop in Macon most of the time which is about 11 hrs away. Then the next morning its about a 6 hr drive.

There is construction in Ky before you get to the state line where it is one lane. There are some areas in Tenn and Ga as well. Florida is a breeze.

The worst area of traffic is Atlanta, do not hit it around rush hour as it is a total nightmare.

I am going to presume that you will be traveling I-57 to I-24 to I-75, and then the Fl turnpike.

Leaving at the hour you plan on is going to really put you getting into DW late the next day if you plan on stopping and spending the night.

You can PM me and I will try to answer any other questions you may have.

Hope this helps and happy traveling. :mickey:

[kemps@wdw]

We get from western KY to Orlando in 12-14 hrs. I would think you should be able to get there the next day (depending on kids ages) and frequency of stops.

[mickeynminnie08]

We drive down to Gainesville yearly from by Springfield. We leave about 3:30amCT and arrive at 10:00pmET. Stop for the night with relatives, then sleep in a little and drive the 2 hours to Orlando. My husband and I trade off about half way through. We enjoy rode trips and I suggest you stop often as the trip should be Part of the vacation. We stop in metropolis and sight see, then we try to stop at one rest stop/welcome center per state and try to find something new. We always miss the FL welcome center's OJ, but we have a ice cream instead. Some of my favorite pictures of the kids are at welcome centers. :cloud9:

[mickey_M_lvr]

Just FYI...I57 has quite a bit of construction. It does slow you down a bit in places. Nothing huge though. Enjoy your time there! :mickey:

[Michelle15]

This is something my husband wants to do in the near future. He loves the drive down. Me personally I love to fly. But I will do this for him.:mickey: YOu should be able to get there the following day. Good Luck

[sherriepaul]

I'm from Huntley, so that's in your neck of the woods! My hubby is from texas and we drove overnight to Dallas with 2 year old twins and it was a nightmare, and we were exhausted so we had little patience for them. We visited my sister in law in germany(so flew again overnight) when they were 4 1/2 and it was a breeze for them. Mom and Dad were exhausted, too hot on plane to sleep sitting up! We are going to WDW next year and planned to drive, but it turns out flying is going to be about the same cost wise for us. And we won't be tired from driving and will have patience for the kiddos. So moral is good luck, have fun, have lots of patience, oh and good luck!:D Those 20 and then some hours will lead you to Mickey!

[Belster]

We are also leaving for Florida in about 4 weeks...not Disney though. I love right by Rockford. We have done this trip several times.

First, drive through Illinois and not Indiana...too much traffic. Illinois will take you about 6-7 hours. We drive straight through. We leave about 3:00 P.M. stop for a late dinner...play outside for about 20 minutes..change the kids into PJ's and continue our drive(the kids will sleep until about 5:00 A.M. We stop for breakfast whenever they wake up. We get to our destination(Tampa) at about 10:00 A.M.

Hope this helps!:mickey:

[KylesMom]

First, drive through Illinois and not Indiana...too much traffic. [ I totally agree with this. We've done both ways a few times, and while Illinois seems long, Indiana feels like forever!

We would always leave around 3:00 am (from DeKalb County), stop for the evening in Valdosta ("landed") around 5:30 pm with the time change, departed from the hotel around 3 or 4 am, and made it to Disney property by 6:30 or 7 am.

As far as driving straight through, I guess it all depends upon the drivers. DH and I commute roughly four hours each day between the two of us, but the fatigue of defensive driving, animals and other "stuff" (smoke from wildfires, etc) have always precluded us from doing so, even though we had the best of intentions a few times. We've been on our last shreds of patience when we've gotten to Valdosta, GA each time.

Last time driving home we decided to drive straight through, and it was a bad move on our part. Road construction detours and a semi truck accident on 24 that held us up for hours made the drive home last almost that - 24 hours. If your thoughts are to drive straight through, have a few stand-by hotels - "just in case". If you're talking about just getting through Illinois (5-6 hours), then stopping, then driving through, I'd still have some hotel names/addresses/numbers on stand-by in lower GA/upper FL . . . just in case.

[Daisy712]

The bypass around Macon has some nice hotels. I believe we stopped at exit 3 last year and stayed at a nice Fairfield Inn for around $85. We were then able to stop at the Florida Welcome Center for OJ and great pictures. We were at HS by 2:00 that afternoon seeing the Star Wars characters. Good luck.