Back when my parents were still together, my dad would do the driving every year on our way from our home north of Baltimore (in Harford County) to Myrtle Beach for our family vacation, which doubled as a visit of my mother's mother, who lived down there (and still does). My dad took the following route: I-95 to I-895, through Baltimore's Harbor Tunnel, and to I-97, then Route 3 to 301, across the Potomac into Virginia, then Route 207 back to I-95 for about 20 miles, then I-295 around Richmond and Petersburg, and once again back to I-95, which we would take into North Carolina; then we would get off at U.S. 74 just south of Lumberton, take that to Route 410, and then take U.S. 701 into South Carolina, and finally follow Route 9 to the coast.
My mom hated all of the traffic lights along 301. She prefers sitting in I-95 traffic for some reason. She and my dad got divorced in the fall of 2006 (no, it wasn't related to that at all), and our first Myrtle Beach trip without my dad was in June 2007 for my grandmother's 85th birthday party. With my mom now free to take her own route, we took the Baltimore-Washington Parkway from Baltimore to D.C., went across the Wilson Bridge into Virginia (that was when it was being reconstructed), and then took I-95 from the Springfield Interchange to Richmond, went around Richmond-Petersburg via 295 like we had done before, then rejoined I-95, went through North Carolina and then took the 74-410-701-9 way like we always did.
In 2008, we started taking I-95 straight through downtown Richmond and Petersburg. Then in 2014, we started taking the Capital Betlway around D.C. instead of actually going through D.C. But my mom continues to avoid 301 despite NoVA's constant traffic issues. I will say in her defense, though, that we haven't seemed to encounter as much traffic along that stretch of 95 since the extension of the HOV lanes into Stafford County.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that my dad was ahead of VDOT by a good two decades, and that my mom, on the other hand, will continue to take I-95 through NoVA as a "forget you" to VDOT.