Adirondack balloon festival

[Peanut]

We are heading up to the Adirondack Balloon Festival next week from Northern Virginia. We plan to leave early evening Thursday and arrive in Queensbury NY Friday early afternoon. Google wants me to skirt Philadelphia and NY City on I95, but I’m thinking 15/81 from Fredrick MD to Scranton PA, 84 to Newburg, then 87 to Queensbury looks like a more relaxed drive. Never been, so I don’t know and hoping for some advice from those that do. We are planning to stop Thursday night somewhere around Hazelton PA and would also appreciate recommendations in that area for a quick overnighter. Thanks!

[SeeMore]

Your route choice to avoid the bustling metropolitan corridor from DC to NYC is a good one. We have done that route many times to/from the New England area and it is a much more relaxed (& beautiful) drive. Just watch out for the Pennsylvania potholes/cracked pavement.

Typically, we are already running north on I-81 through the Shenandoah Valley, but with family north of Ashland we have diverted to I-81 from there. I did 95 to 495 to 270 once very early on a Saturday morning but it took almost as long to get to Gaithersburg as cross country to Leesburg from Fredericksburg on 234/15 any day of the week.

[OTRA15]

Welcome to the forum!

I would avoid DC and 495 altogether. Not sure about when you are planning on getting over to 15, but can you go locally up through Chantilly and Leesburg? Or get on I-66 west to I-81? This is a bit longer in length but will probably save you time IMO.

The rest of your route sounds great, and we have done different portions of that for different trips. [I-81 to I-84 to Newburgh then north on I-87]

If you are using EZ Pass don't forget that you can get a tag which can include your trailer, but not sure about the timing of getting it. Even with a one-axle trailer in theory you need to upgrade:

http://www.thruway.ny.gov/ezpass/ta-w68176.pdf

For our FC20 we recently got the "076" Tag Code EZ Pass. I think I just called them, because we had an EZ Pass account already, and they sent a new one right away.

Have fun!

Peter

PS -- As I look at the map, you could also stay on I-81 northbound to Binghamton NY then take I-88 to the Albany area, then pick up I-87. You would avoid lots of NYC traffic heading north on the NYS Thruway [I-87] on Friday. Not sure where the festival is, but I would tend to go this way if possible, I think, even if it may be a few more miles. Actually I-88 angles up toward Albany going in a ENE direction, so it may actually save a few miles IMO!

This could be a more scenic route also . . .