<p>Lorelei, Everyone will be back in school and work by then in this area. You want to be past the beltway at Springfield going south before 3 pm on a weekday. Fredericksburg and Stafford county are outer suburbs for DC and even with HOV lanes traffic will be backing up. Everyday can be a little different obviously, accidents etc. The HOV lanes end at Quantico and that can often cause a slow down as you lose lanes. But again if you are at the south end of the beltway by 3 you should be okay.</p>
<p>Follow up from the OP-</p>
<p>We did the drive on Saturday. We got on the road at 7:20 am. We took the eastern beltway (495) around Washington. We hit the Virginia traffic on 95S about 11:15 am. It took us about 2 1/2- 3 hours to go about 30 miles. Traffic became more sporadic at Fredericksburg and let up by Richmond. We took 295 aound Richmond. We arrived at Florence SC at about 8 pm, where we spent the night. Sunday we got on the road (95) about the same time, just after 7 am and we pulled into our driveway in south Florida about 4:30pm. </p>
<p>Thanks to all for your inputs. I think the being mentally prepped for the traffic helped us deal. Thank goodness, our normally Barky pup slept through the Virginia mess. We made pit stops every few hours for 10-15 minutes. If we weren’t traveling with dogs, we could have left much earlier but old crotchety dogs (and we have two of those) are more difficult than children to get moving in the am. I think next year we will wait till after labor day for our return trip…hopefully Virginia roads will be less congested then.</p>
<p>We drive back and forth from CT to Florida several times a year. We used to dread the NJ Tpk, more recently, the DC-Fredericksburg area has my stomach in knots. (I dislike long drives). I doesn’t seem to matter whether you are going north or south, weekend or mid-week, the drive is a nightmare. We have tried various detours, time of day, etc. We found that driving south, midweek around 10 am, after rush hour seems to have less traffic unless you hit the never ending construction project. Going northbound, midweek about 8 pm is also a little more tolerable.</p>