Is interstate travel common and easy on the U.S. east coast? I’ll admit I get impression from watching TV shows and movies, which present the picture of travelling from Philadelphia to Cincinnati or Boston that might as well be the neighboring town. I grew up in California where just to get to Los Angeles or San Francisco we might as well have been travelling to another country.
The cities on the East Coast are much closer together than those on the West Coast, so travel takes less time. It’s 4 1/2 hours from New York City to Washington, DC, but over six hours from LA to San Francisco – and the trip to DC would pass by Philadelphia and Baltimore.
Boston to Cincinnati might be a full day of travel, but already you’re pushing the bounds of what might be considered the East Coast.
Would that really be just a day? Harrisburg, PA to Boston took me 8 hours. Although now I come to think of it, I didn’t really know where I was going and my navigator was drunk, so that didn’t help.
I was able to get from Albany, NY to Tampa, FL in less than 24 hours…that’s, like, 80% of the east coast in a day.
It’s common, but I would never describe it as easy in regards to DC and all points north of there.
Boston to Cincinnati is 15 hours. As I said, it’s a full day. Cincinnati is pushing it for being on the East Coast anyway.
Though traffic can be a major factor - it’s taken me 6 hours to do Philadelphia area -> DC area.
We have a big corridor here called “The Megalopolis”, or “The Bos-Wash Megalopolis” that consists of Boston, NYC, Philadelpha, Baltimore, and DC, and their respective metro areas (e.g. most of the NJ turnpike, much of CT, that bleed into each other to some degree. People actually commute between Baltimore and DC for work.
We now have high speed rail (Acela) between Boston
People routinely drive interstate. The fact that a lot of major cities – New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington – are located right on state borders means that for a lot of people it’s practically mandatory.
Going from Washington to Baltimore or from Baltimore to Philadelphia to spend the day or a few hours is no problem at all. They’re very close together.
But this is all just an accident of history, really. States are smaller in the east, so interstate travel is routine. I’ve read that people in California are actually more accustomed to long driving trips on a daily basis than people on the East Coast. It just so happens that because California is a big state that none of that travel is interstate.
I’ve driven from Dayton to Boston, and it’s a very long day but doable if you make good time and take turns driving. You wake up at six and if you don’t hit any major delays you can arrive by nine or ten at night.
But back to the OP, yeah, the east coast cities are pretty close. I’m now in Rhode Island and the southern bits of New England (CT, RI, MA, southern VT, NH, and ME) are all within reasonable distance for a day trip. New York City is just over three hours away – I wouldn’t want to drive there and back in one day, but it would be possible if I absolutely needed to. DC would be a reasonable drive (~7 hours) if I had somewhere to stay for a couple nights. But at that distance, I’d prefer to fly if I could get a direct flight (~4 hours once you include all the waiting time) or take a train (6 or 7 very relaxing hours).
I’ve driven from Boston to Columbus, OH in a day. It’s a long day, maybe 13-14 hours, but not a problem with two drivers.
One thing that makes East Coast travel easier is E-ZPass, an electronic toll collection system in use in many of the East Coast states. It’s similar to the FasTrak system in California.
If you’re born and bred in the west…the east coast is confusing and scary-crowded. It’s disorienting for a newcomer.You frequently don’t even know what state you are in, since during a short drive you can find youself crossing borders of, say, Virginia, Washington*, and Maryland several times.
Oh…and in New Jersey, you can’t tell what city you’re in. They’re all attached. 
*yeah, I know DC isn’t a state. But it should be.
The key to interstate travel here in the East is timing (rush hours are very bad) and good trip information (currently large parts of the VA DC beltway CLOSE COMPLETELY overnight for construction).
Also there are some strange regional problems. For example I95 in VA gets bogged down on the weekends during the summer due to holiday traffic, and I mean 50 miles of bumper to bumper when you would think it was smooth sailing.
For a long trip it might be wise to consider running down I81 which parallels I95 about an hour west along the mountains. Very beautiful ride and far less congested.
Or of course, go for a night run. That works too.
While the distances may be shorter there are often numerous delays due to rush hour traffic, road repairs, holiday travel or just whatever. Not sure how CA interstate roads are but many on the east coast are older and in constant need of repair. Also. some states like DE apparently have monkeys planning their road repairs, and will schedule major road service in the middle of heavy daytime holiday traffic with no regard to traffic flow. It (twice) took 7 hours to get from Philadelphia to Ocean City Maryland due to Delaware road repairs scheduled on holidays.
If you throw the train system of the NE corridor into the mix, and a flourishing bus system, people from D.C., Baltimore, Wimington, Philadelphia, Newark, New York and Boston are always in each other’s towns on a regular basis. The NE corridor has always been Amtrak’s only profitable line. There are great bus options, too. Just wake up one Saturday in NYC and feel like visiting friends in Philly? If you have a couple of hours, you’re good to go.
It is quite normal to wake up in a place like Wilmington, DE or Philly and decide to see a show in NYC or go shopping there the next day and then just go. Same for D.C or Baltimore. “Hey, they Phillies are playing the Nationals in D.C.; let’s go”. If you can get to interstate 95, you’re golden… and everyone from Boston to Florida can get to I95 w/out too much thought.
Most people just hop on a train or bus to go big city to big city. Leave the car out of the mix between major NE cities. Cars are for the burbs. Nothing beats coming out of Penn Station in NYC at 10am on a beautiful Saturday morning, where you know you’ll kill the whole day and be back in bed at home in Baltimore or Philly, etc… or where ever you are from in the NE corridor.
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The East Coast is two entirely different worlds that you don’t understand until you live it.
The Coast itself, that is, the ports on the Atlantic, is a spectrum of major cities spaced 100-200 miles apart.
The western end of some of those same states are in the Middle West. No matter what Californians believe, it’s a longer drive from New York to Buffalo than it is from Los Angeles to San Francisco, or so says travelmath.com. Ohio is a long way off. It’s much farther from Harrisburg to Cincinnati than than either of those.
Similarly, people in the East don’t really understand the distances involved in the rest of the U.S. One of my favorite stories involved a supervisor in our New York office calling us one day to ask us to send someone to Decatur, IL to take a photo. My boss, who had grown up on the east coast, told her he personally would go take the photo if the supervisor would run down to Philadelphia and pick up a cheesesteak for him.
I travel interstate every day, since I live in Vermont and work in New Hampshire. I’ve had three and four state days, and came close to having a five state day last month (that is, being in five states in one day).
From Northern Virginia upwards, there can be a lot of congestion in spots. South and West from Virginia there isn’t much traffic in general.