Dave’s Top Ten on the I-75 drive to Florida



Dave’s Top Ten on the I-75 drive to Florida

During the winter, millions of Ontarians head down the USA’s Interstate-75 on their way to Florida. This popular route — from Detroit and through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia — takes us from winter snows to the sun-drenched beaches of Florida.

Nobody knows this route better than travel author Dave Hunter and his wife Kathy, who have been driving it for more 45 years and just released the 20th edition of their popular driving guidebook - the "bible" — "Along Interstate-75."

Here are Dave's top picks for your journey south:

1. Best motels - the family owned and employee run Drury Hotels. Conveniently located at Ohio, Tennessee and Georgia exits, this is a lodging chain which simply gets it “just right” for an overnight stay on route to Florida.

Reasonably priced, once you check in there is absolutely nothing else to pay ... an open bar, hot evening food menu, after hours soft drinks, long distance phone calls, hot breakfast, and it's all free. In fact, the Drury motto says it all, “The extras aren’t extra.” Drury Hotels also have well appointed sound-proof rooms and accept pets. What more could one ask?

2. Best BBQ ribs - whether you like them with mild, hot or suicide sauce, the Pit Stop Bar-B-Que at exit 63B in Tifton, Georgia, is a “must-stop” for the BBQ rib gourmet. We’ve found nothing better in the South.

3. Best ice-cream - voted the "Best Ice-cream in the World" by Time Magazine, tiny Mayfield Dairy at Athens, Tennessee (take exit 52 east for 7 kms) has become a "must" stop, especially if travelling with children. Visit the ice cream factory and enjoy tiny scoop samples of their many flavours. It's a must stop for the entire family.

4. Best view - mountains march across the horizon as you transverse the foothills of the Appalachians near the Kentucky-Tennessee border. Have your camera ready at milepost 9, and again at milepost 4.

5. Best lunch stop – the OK Café in north Atlanta (east of Georgia exit 255) is right out of the 1950s. It’s very popular locally but also very fast in terms of seating you. In fact, there’s a clock just outside the front door which announces the “wait time.” I have tested it on a number of visits and it's very accurate.

6. Best gas bargain - don't miss filling up before you cross the Tennessee border into Georgia, and again before you leave Georgia and roll into Florida. Because of its fuel tax base, Tennessee tends to have the cheapest gas on your entire journey.

7. Best way to speed your journey - rent books-on-tape from any of the popular Cracker Barrel Restaurants. For $3.49 per week, you can get the latest hot fiction and drop it off at another Cracker Barrel near your Florida destination.

8. Best beauty spot - Kentucky's Cumberland Falls (take exit 25 west and ask for local directions). Hauntingly beautiful at night. Only one of two places in the world where the full moon forms a waterfall rainbow (also known as a "moonbow").

9. Best unusual experience - a dish of fried green tomatoes at the famous Whistle Stop Cafe in Juliette, Georgia (15 kms east at exit 186 - but worth the drive). Before your meal, visit the gift stores and boutiques in the set from the movie of the same name, and then go and visit with the cafe's manager, Elizabeth. Tell her that Dave sent you!

10. Best off-the-interstate drive - getting tired of the humdrum noise of tires on the tarmac? If so, turn west at Tennessee exit 160, drive through Jellico and parallel the I-75 in the beautiful Elk Valley. Follow Route 297 south and rejoin I-75 at exit 141. Extra time? 21 minutes.

(words: 629).

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Credit: by Dave Hunter, author of Along I-75 and Along Florida’s Expressways.

Additional, if needed:

Dave is a founding member of the Travel Media Association of Canada and a long time member of the Society of American Travel Writers. His travel guide books have won prestigious awards in both Canada and the USA.

Dave and his wife Kathy, have been driving I-75 to Florida since it was built in the 1960s.

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