Anonymous wrote:You need to leave Friday morning. Take off work and pull the kids out of camp. You will regret it if you wait until Friday afternoon.

If you leave at 6am, you'll be ahead of the local rush hour.

We left Friday afternoon (this is OP). Don't regret it. Very easy drive. Spent the night near New haven - arrived about 8pm (six hour drive) so could have driven another couple of hours. Worst traffic was Saturday when we were delayed about an hour in New Hampshire. Smoothest trip over GW bridge ever thanks to Waze.

Consider the longer, but nicer route of going through Pennsylvania then Route 84 East towards Boston. You avoid most of the urban rush hours. Pretty drive through mountains.

You need to leave Friday morning. Take off work and pull the kids out of camp. You will regret it if you wait until Friday afternoon.

If you leave at 6am, you'll be ahead of the local rush hour.

The last time I drove to Maine on a Friday afternoon the traffic was miserable. I think it took us 8-9 hours to make it to CT. We drove straight through (2 adults, no kids) and the whole trip was 13 hours (should be 9.5 to our location with no stops or traffic).

With kids, we stop in CT. We stayed at the Hampton Inn Shelton, which has a cool waterslide and pool, but that location was partially chosen because I couldn't take the Merritt Parkway, which is faster. There is also a hotel in Springfield MA with an indoor waterpark, though the hotel itself isn't super nice.

I've also left in the morning, stopped at a big playground or indoor bounce place (just search on Google Maps at a halfway point) for a few hours and finished the drive. My kids don't sleep in the car and are little, so this is my favorite option.