Title says it all. How many miles are you willing to put on the road for how few of days? Lets say you got a 4 day weekend...3 nights on available...I think the furthest I have driven for a short trip was Maryland...2 nights on the trail 2.5 days of walkin...1174 miles on the road.
Now as a disclaimer it was in the infant stages of my AT completion attempt and I wanted to say I had completed a state so what the hell lets drive thru the night and walk Maryland from Harpers Ferry to Pen Mar - Would I make that drive again now knowing what I know? Nope I would tack Maryland onto 1 of my long (1-2 week trips). Live and learn.
Now at the end of my Virginia completion.. I wanted to get it done..BAD. And so my last 3 trips were all 3-4 day trips between Bearwallow Gap and Rockfish Gap... which for me resulted in about 920 miles per trip for about 40-46 miles per trip. But I got that sucker done lol
Now that I am starting a second map completion of the trail - No intention of setting out to complete every mile of it a second time just Springer to somewhere up in VA I would say - I will be looking at improving my mileage efficiency from my first map. For instance leaving the car on the home side of the trip to save the driving miles that the shuttle is going to have to drive anyway.