It s definitely, DEFINITELY, a great idea to avoid the moutains this time of year. My sister and I just road tripped from southern WI to Miami and had the misfortune of driving through freezing rain from Atlanta through Nashville and Paducah. The snow-covered roads of IL and WI were almost a relief compared to that stress!That being said I think your best bet is I-65 to I-20 to I-75. We drove straight through to Miami in 23+ hours stopping for gas and food. Hollywood is just north of that so depending on the weather you re probably looking at a similar drive.BTW, if you want to save on gas you should check out this website: http://www.roadtripjournal.com/ for more road trip tips and the chance to win $200 in gas (this would definitely cover the gas bill on your trip).Happy trails!
You probably want to take 65 or 75 depending on where in FL you want to be or whether you want to go through Atlanta or not. 75 might brush the Appalachian mountains in Eastern Tennessee, but it shouldn t be any serious climbing.As far as how long. Again it depends on where in FL you want to go. It s about 15 hours from Chi-town to the Georgia-Florida border. From there though, Florida is actually a pretty huge state in terms of N-S travel. For example, if you re headed to Tallahassee, I d say about 16 hours. If you re going to Miami, it s probably more like 22-23. Check out Google maps for more info. Good luck and enjoy.
If you take I-65 straight south to Birmingham AL you won t see a single mountain worth discussing.Depending on where you are going in FLA you can then head east to Atlanta and then south on I-75 into eastern or central FLA or continue south on I-65 to the panhandle.