Originally Posted by octr202

Worth noting for ecgz88 that it's pretty hard to avoid tolls in the northeast. In addition to all (or nearly all) Hudson River Crossings, there's also few or no ways across the Delaware River/Bay or the major waterways in Maryland (Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore Harbor, Susquehanna River) without a toll in at least one direction. And of course, you'll encounter at a minimum the longer toll roads (like the NJ Turnpike) as well. And the number of toll facilities accepting cash is decreasing (while slightly outside this forum, worth noting that all tolls in Massachusetts are also cashless (I-90/MassPike and Boston Harbor tunnels/bridge). You cannot really drive your way around tolls here, and might not always be able to pay cash.

That said, I'd say you're unlikely to spend $100 in tolls, which is what the Dollar plan comes to at $8.49/day for 12 days, but $30-50 is quite likely depending on where you go (NYC area being highest), and how much back and forth you do across toll roads (i.e., crossing the Hudson can hit $8-15 each time eastbound, depending on where you do it).

Originally Posted by guv1976

If you will be starting your trip when the E-Z Pass Newark Customer Service Center is open, you might consider just opening your own account and getting your own E-Z Pass transponder at the Service Center before starting your road trip. If you will have no further use for E-Z Pass after your road trip, just return the transponder and close your account -- either in person or by mail.

https://www.ezpassnj.com/en/about/csc.shtml

Originally Posted by ijgordon

You *definitely* can't drive your way around tolls if you're doing EWR-DC-BOS-EWR, not unless you want to double your travel time. The vast majority of tolls will probably be on the EWR-DC-NY area legs, once you cross the Hudson on the way up to Boston, I think if you stay on 95 there's only one toll in the New Rochelle area (which you could avoid by taking the Henry Hudson to Hutch to Merritt back to 95 in Orange CT. 95 isn't the shortest/fastest way to Boston, but I think it's only about 20 miles longer than 84 to the Mass Pike and would save those tolls.

I think it really comes down to whether or not you can pay cash. I'm almost certain that between the NYC area and DC cash is not a problem (if you don't take the Henry Hudson routing above), although it will cost more and take more time at the tollbooths. And again, on 95 north of NYC there shouldn't be any tolls, at least not until you get to Boston, where my knowledge is limited. But if you're not going to the BOS airport, I know you'll avoid the cashless tunnel tolls.

I would definitely look into how the rental agency (and tolling agency) handles the cashless tolls if you aren't using a transponder. If the toll authority does toll-by-mail with no penalty, and the rental agency only charges a daily fee for days when you use a cashless toll, it might make sense to just pay cash when in the NY-DC corridor, and deal with a couple of days of fees in the BOS area.

I do wonder how hard the car rental agencies lobbied for cashless tolls...

ETA: OK, I checked google maps, and apparently avoiding tolls from EWR to DC only adds 20 miles and 1hr to a ~4 hour drive. A tad surprising...