Tolls & driving in the US

[PumpkinCupcake]

Our big trip is fast approaching and I'm trying to get everything together, and I'm wondering if anyone has any info on the tolls...

We're going to be picking our car up in Knoxville, TN and then driving for around 10 days until we drop the car off in Boston, MA. We'll be driving across quite a few states, and I can already see whilst planning using google maps that there will be tolls.

Is there an easier/better way to pay these, than having cash to pay at each one? Or does anyone know if it's easy to pay by card? I'm not completely sure how many we'll drive through to know how much cash we will need so would prefer to pay the majority by card unless we must have cash with us.

[stevo25]

Just had a google at this for future reference too, have a look at tollguru/ then you can calculate costs and pay cash, so there is no surprises after your holiday

[pompeyboy]

You might need to ask the car rental company or maybe post on the transportation/car hire section of this site. We drove from SF to LA and didn't encounter 1 toll.

However in Florida the have a SunPass system where you just drive through the toll plaza and it charges it to your card, around Miami a lot of the tolls are collected this way, with no option to pay cash/card.

Further up there are some that have both this option and a cash/card lane, where you stop and pay with cash or card, just to make it worse there are some tolls that are cash only and you have to throw some change into a machine, these are usually on smaller exit slip roads.

So it would be good to familiarise yourself with how to pay tolls in the area you are visiting and have a card and some quarters just in case.

[georgemac]

So last year, we started in Baltimore, drove up to New York, then to Boston, then across New York State to Niagra, and then back down to Washington via Harrisburg.

Quite a few of the toll roads had no option to pay with cash, and it was number plate recognition only. Higher charge - but not much - if you did not have E-Z pass. I paid cash at many, but some it was not possible. Most expensive were bridges around NYC (I only went to Staten Island and Northwards to Boston from NJ side of New York - the bridge tolls were $15 each).

I had Avis rental car - the tolling charges appeared OK to me. Took a couple of months for them all to come through.

It really depends on what states and routes you are taking. Link with some information.

I used the tollguru app to look ahead and see the toll costs

[Ridersmom]

EZPass is on most of the toll roads in the north east. On the way to Boston it can be used in NJ, NY, MA among others. The MA Pike is EZPass with no booths. You can take Rte 20, a back Road to avoid the MA Pike but to me it's not worth 2 lanes with many stop lights to save a couple of dollars.

I have driven to Texas from New England and don't remember any tolls past NJ and PA but that was a few years back.

[Ridersmom]

e-zpassiag/

[PumpkinCupcake]

Thank you! I’ll take a look into this

We’re driving from Knoxville to Asheville in North Carolina, and then up through the blue ridge parkway to sky land drive in Virginia. Then from there to Washington DC, then NYC and then lastly to Boston