R1S Freshman College Move in Success

[jeeden]

Just thought I would drop in here and give some love to our R1S road trip to move my daughter in for her Freshman year at College. As predicted it was a great experience. The Rivian accepted all the gear with ease and we didn't even have to use the roof box thanks to the frunk handling our overnight bags.

Trip was from Northern Virginia to Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, about 3.5 hours each way mostly interstate driving. We did a quick 15 minute charge on the way down while hitting the bathrooms after too much ice tea at Texas Roadhouse in Harrisonburg which gave us plenty to get to our hotel in Salem, VA and then to Tech the next morning for move in.

Blacksburg has grown so much over the years and is very modern compared to what it used to be. There are level II chargers on campus, but not available because of special parking for move in. In the past the Troutville/Hollins Electrify America DCFC were the place to charge so you had to keep enough reserve going up/back to Tech from Roanoke, but now a relatively new Sheetz in town that had newer Tesla Chargers for the last few years available to Teslas only are open to non-Teslas so we charged there consistently at 215kw. It's going to be very handy to drive all the way there, charge, and then come back without stopping (except for the food and bathroom breaks).

I also have to give some props to Virginia Tech for converting nearly their entire fleet of on campus Blacksburg transit busses to electric. So cool to see them whir by

Anyway, here are some photos...

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[bac4uw]

Congratulations! I just got back from doing a similar trip to Boise from Seattle with my daughter in my R1T. It highlighted just how much stuff one can fit into an R1T (w/ Flated shell over the back), and that my daughter brought waaaaay too much stuff. Given that, at college move-out time in the Spring we'll be getting a storage unit instead of bring all her stuff back!

 

[SBK]

Hey we have the same car and love it! We also drove our daughter to college last week: University of South Carolina from NY, but can’t say that the 760 mile trip went without frustrations. The car fits probably as much as our old Suburban so that wasn’t a problem, but charging definitely added a lot of extra time to the trip. We filtered for only Rivian and Tesla chargers but found navigation sent us out of our way to charge, and as a result lengthened our route. Preplanning the way there was helpful mitigating and overriding where navigation was planning, however due to time constraints we did not preplan the return trip. This caused us to have to pull over and double check the route with the iPhone, and turn off Rivian’s navigation until we charged on our original route. Otherwise the car did great on the trip and we even camped, sleeping in the back with the seats down in the empty car after dropping our daughter off.

 

[McLovin]

Nice! Our youngest daughter graduated last spring ('25) w/ her MS from Tech. We took our R1T down a few times, and were pleasantly surprised by the charging options. But even better, a few of the hotels also had free L2 charging on site, so we got a full charge overnight.

I presume you went I-66 -> I-81? We'd go 29S (since we're in Warrenton...literally 1 mile from 29), and initially chargers were few & far between. But now there's a bunch of Sheetz & Wawa between Culpeper & Charlottesville, as well as a RAN in Waynesborough. Didn't need them on the way down (we could normally make it to Roanoke no problem), but it was good to have options on the way back.

Oh, and I highly recommend Gillie's for breakfast. They have a killer Banana Walnut French Toast...

 

[KBabione]

You beat me to it - I moved my twins back to college this week as well...

On Monday we moved Lily into her dorm at Penn State in a very full R1S (she took her Subaru Outback which also had some stuff):

It was a 2-hour drive to Penn State and we came home on Monday because we had to pack Zoe up on Tuesday for a 6am departure for Columbus (a 7.5 hour drive with charging) on Wednesday:

I didn't get a photo of the subtrunk (which was also full) AND we had a completely full Toyota Highlander (including the front passenger seat). We got home from Columbus late Friday night and then had to be back at Penn State for an event Saturday afternoon. Not counting our local running around while we were at each school, we spent 23 hours in Rosie last week!

I'm grateful for how much a R1S can hold!

 

[mkennedy009]

Looks like they are never coming back.

 

[jeeden]

Nice! Our youngest daughter graduated last spring ('25) w/ her MS from Tech. We took our R1T down a few times, and were pleasantly surprised by the charging options. But even better, a few of the hotels also had free L2 charging on site, so we got a full charge overnight.

I presume you went I-66 -> I-81? We'd go 29S (since we're in Warrenton...literally 1 mile from 29), and initially chargers were few & far between. But now there's a bunch of Sheetz & Wawa between Culpeper & Charlottesville, as well as a RAN in Waynesborough. Didn't need them on the way down (we could normally make it to Roanoke no problem), but it was good to have options on the way back.

Oh, and I highly recommend Gillie's for breakfast. They have a killer Banana Walnut French Toast...

So when I went to school at Tech (graduated 2001) I used to go from our home in Loudoun by way of Rt 7 to Winchester and then down. Lately I find myself going through the Marshall area more to I-66 because WInchester has some bad traffic these days and if I ever want it I have the RAN chargers in Front Royal.

Honorable mentions for charging stops on I-81 woudl be Woodstock Tesla (Sheetz), Lexington Tesla (just 1/2 mile on I-64 west from I-81), Electrify America at Troutville.

Yea there are a lot on the way to Charlottesville now too.

 

[jeeden]

Hey we have the same car and love it! We also drove our daughter to college last week: University of South Carolina from NY, but can’t say that the 760 mile trip went without frustrations. The car fits probably as much as our old Suburban so that wasn’t a problem, but charging definitely added a lot of extra time to the trip. We filtered for only Rivian and Tesla chargers but found navigation sent us out of our way to charge, and as a result lengthened our route. Preplanning the way there was helpful mitigating and overriding where navigation was planning, however due to time constraints we did not preplan the return trip. This caused us to have to pull over and double check the route with the iPhone, and turn off Rivian’s navigation until we charged on our original route. Otherwise the car did great on the trip and we even camped, sleeping in the back with the seats down in the empty car after dropping our daughter off.

I did forget to give the Rivian Nav kudos on the Tesla chargers in Blacksburg. For years they have been Tesla only on the tesla site and on plugshare reviews. Then while driving by my wife noticed they showed up on the Rivian nav so we stopped and they were great! I wrote to plugshare and they have updated the site to show non tesla welcome.

I'm sorry you had charging issues. I highly recommend setting the nav to the highest speed only, then to only ignore out of order and private chargers, allow any score of charger, and finally ENABLE the Ionna networks (I'm still excited to try one of these, they are supposed to be great), Tesla, Rivian, and Electrify America (they have improved a LOT in the last few years).

To cut down on the stoppage time we ALWAYS combined charging with bathroom/starbucks breaks that run about 20 minutes (it is surprising how long a "quick stop" really takes) and then a long 45 min lunch break.

Finally, since you are coming from NY, check out the applegreen chargers. They are throughout NY, NJ, and PA and they are EXCELLENT. I wish Rivian would add them to the Nav. They are the company that runs all the reststops on the PA and NJ turnpikes and are dominant in Europe. We do a road trip in the summer to NH and use them a lot and they are great.

 

[jeeden]

You beat me to it - I moved my twins back to college this week as well...

On Monday we moved Lily into her dorm at Penn State in a very full R1S (she took her Subaru Outback which also had some stuff):

It was a 2-hour drive to Penn State and we came home on Monday because we had to pack Zoe up on Tuesday for a 6am departure for Columbus (a 7.5 hour drive with charging) on Wednesday:

I didn't get a photo of the subtrunk (which was also full) AND we had a completely full Toyota Highlander (including the front passenger seat). We got home from Columbus late Friday night and then had to be back at Penn State for an event Saturday afternoon. Not counting our local running around while we were at each school, we spent 23 hours in Rosie last week!

I'm grateful for how much a R1S can hold!

Wow, that is a lot. We found that as much as she took it still seems easier than when we were kids. For example, a TV, computer, monitor, CD player or DVD player, etc.... that is all a laptop and phone now. Everything is USB, LED, etc. She is in the dorm though so apartment living is definitely different.

 

[DuoRivian]

Did the same college trip from PA to NC with the R1T. Hardly surprising the S can do it too!

 

[diabolik]

Just got home from the same experience except I had all the seats down and had it loaded tight. We had a 7 hour trip (inc charge stops) going from SWFL to FSU in Tallahassee.

While AI generated, this is what I felt like:

 

[mkg3]

We didn't have R1S when we moved our youngest into UCLA but when he got a job in San Francisco, we did and here's how it looked:
https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/...my-3d-print-solution.23630/page-6#post-593038

 

[skyguyscott]

Well, congrats to your daughter. I am envious of her coming freshman year, as that was one of the very best years of my life, she is in for so many new and memorable experiences and will meet new life-long friends.

But back in my day, I fit all my stuff in one normal sized sedan, as I recall. We didn't have cell phones, there were two land-lines per floor in my dorm; no microwave ovens, though some of us might have had mini-fridges. I think I had one of those electric kettles. I broght a B/W TV, but don't ever recall watching it much; way too busy -- same with the stereo. Good times.

 

[Thedude]

Jesus. I flew cross country to college with two normal size suitcases and a backpack.

 

[KBabione]

Looks like they are never coming back.

My Ohio Stater moved into an apartment and we literally told her that she'd be there until she leaves Columbus!!! Since moving in she's acquired significantly more things, including a dining table and chairs, a patio set (two chairs and a table), and a bar cart. I wonder that that's for

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