Last weekend I drove down with friends to the SV Temple in Pittsburg, a distance of 212 miles from where I live. We rented a Nissan Pathfinder. I drove one-way, with my friend taking over for the return trip. The longest I was behind the wheel non-stop was 113 miles - about 2 hours. When we pulled into a rest area, I got out and nearly collapsed - my right leg had cramped up so badly I could barely walk. We stopped there for over 30 minutes as I walked up and down the road trying to get my leg back in shape. The cramp never really went away until the next day.
If a paltry 113 miles can do this to me I think I am not a fit candidate for driving longer distances non-stop, even in a high-end SUV. I am curious if folks here can drive much longer hours and hold up better than me? I am a relatively less experienced driver - been driving for less than 2 years now. Maybe it gets better with time?
How long and what distance have you driven non-stop? Did you suffer cramps or body pains and stuff?
Non-stop, per the OP? That’s a big fuel tank you’ve got there.
Driving, I think I may have done 200 miles non-stop on a few occasions. These days, when my wife and I are travelling together, I try to make it a point to stop every ~100 miles or so.
A couple of decades ago I was pursuing a SaddleSore 1000, a documented motorcycle ride of 1000 miles in under 24 hours. Most folks who do this elect to complete the whole thing in a single waking period, but I set it up as 750 miles in one day followed by 250 miles the next morning. Keeping my stops short and infrequent was key to allowing a decent night’s sleep in the middle, so several times I rode until the low-fuel light came on, nearly 250 miles between stops. This sounds worse than it is: unlike a car, you can actually stand up on a motorcycle while riding, giving you a chance to straighten your knees and hips and restore some circulation without having to stop.
trying to drive long distances between stops is generally ill-advised. Not only are breaks good for maintaining alertness, but sitting still for very long periods puts a body at risk for deep-vein thrombosis. This is commonly associated with air travel, but it occasionally afflicts long-distance road drivers/passengers as well.
I probably stopped once for gas, but on a few occasions I’ve driven from Pittsburgh to Assateague Island (400 miles) in a Toyota Tercel packed full with camping gear, two bikes on the back, and a canoe on foam blocks strapped to the roof.
The idea was to maximize vacation time by driving nonstop. Looking back, I was a little bit crazy.
In my Prius I’ve done over 400 without stopping at all. I traditionally do that as the first leg of a road trip before the fluid intake starts to catch up with me. I shift my weight occasionally to avoid numbness.
Once I’ve “broken the seal”, I stop whenever I need to relieve myself or get gas. I try to do both at once but am not always successful. I stop at trucker-type stops which almost always have an open restroom. If it’s a place that doesn’t look like it has a restroom I keep going unless I’m low on fuel, otherwise I fill up and don’t even walk into the place. If it does look like it has a restroom and I need to go, I walk in first and use the restroom, because nothing feels worse than fueling up and walking into a place only to find their restroom isn’t working.
I know I have done over 200 miles in one sitting, though not any time recently. My usual long haul is around 120+ miles to visit my parents. Often I will return on the same day, so 120+ miles there and then 120+ miles back with no breaks either way. Of course most of it is on the interstate so you can set the cruise which does give your feet a rest.
The image below is of my vehicle’s console display.
785km (487 miles) in 8 1/2 hours, no stops, one tank of fuel and still had 250km range)
Myself and three teenage kids.
I do that trip out to the family farms fairly regularly. Usually stop for a meal about half way.
On this trip I was travelling for Dad’s funeral so just kept driving.
Somewhere around 300 miles at a go. Then stop for gas and use the facilities, the back on the road. I’ve driven up to 12 hours in a day, but not recently.
Back when I was in the Air Force in the '80s and going home on leave, I’d drive around 800 miles (14 hours) only stopping for gas and a bathroom break a few times. Took so long because it was 55 back then.
I’d get off my shift and then take a nap for four or five hours, then hit the road around midnight. It seemed the trip went faster if I drove at night & early morning for some reason.
The only issue I had was getting a big blister on my right heel.
If the OP means non-stop even for gas or relieving oneself, I don’t know because I never kept track of that, but I’ve driven plenty of long hauls. I live in the Metro Detroit area, and I used to camp in Michigan’s U.P. pretty often, so I’ve made probably a dozen or more drives 9-12 hours at a time stopping only to pee, refuel, or pick up fast food for the road (fortunately many places heading up north can take care of all 3).
Once when I was much younger I drove non-stop except to pee, refuel, or pick up fast food from South Florida to Metro Detroit. Took a little over 24 hours. I was practically hallucinating towards the end. Pretty stupid, I know; I had been planning to stop at a motel when I got tired but I felt fine until north Kentucky almost at the Ohio border, and decided to tough it out the rest of the way.
The company I used to work for mandated a ten-minute stop every two hours of driving, a maximum of 12 hours of driving out of 24, and no late-night driving unless absolutely necessary. I thought all of that that to be highly sensible.
In my personal vehicle, I tend to drive no more than 12 hours as well, stopping for a short break every 200 miles or so.
The gas tank limited me from going more than 300 miles without a stop, but I did that several times driving from Atlanta to San Antonio for military training. Once. When I was 22.
None of my body parts malfunctioned, but it wasn’t fun. However, it was more fun than spending one minute longer than necessary on the boring, lifeless interstates of the southern US.
I’ve done quite a bit of long-distance driving including several coast-to-coast drives from Pennsylvania to California and back. Longest non-stop was PA to FL; made that trip several times in 24 hours.
On long drives I always stop once every two hours for about 10 minutes to stretch, pee, gas, etc. Stretch and rotate hands and fingers frequently to avoid cramping.
Longest single nonstop [other than for gas and biobreaks] was Rochester NY to Minneapolis in a 75 Mustang with a bored out v-8. I could run about 3.5 hours between tank fills which worked out well for a get gas, walk in to pee and get a coffee and snack. Roughly 1000 miles and 22 hours [I hit a couple rush hours around Cleveland and Chicago] and I admit to an actual meal break of about 45 at a waffle house in Michegan somewhere.
mrAru and I regularly road trip as our vacation form, and first day I will drive 14 to 16 hours, after that we run about 8-10 hours. I do all the driving, I have issues with letting him drive me. I actually like driving, and in general when I did work, my jobs had me working in Hartford so every day was a minimum of 50 miles one way [when I worked in Cheshire it was almost exactly 75 miles one way] We do music or audiobooks on drives.
In my foolish younger days, I’d do 4-5 hours without needing to stop, however many miles that would have been at 55-60MPH. Now, tho, even sharing wheel time, I’m hard-pressed to make it 3 hours.
We used to make quick gas stops and eat as we drove. Now we’ll seek out a sit-down restaurant along the way. But we’ll do an 800 mile day, going from home to my inlaws’ place in Ocala, FL in 13-14 hours.
303 miles back in my youth. These days I rarely go more than 90 minutes between breaks because I’m 67 and my ass and back get sore. And because I have the luxury to no longer be in a hurry.