Differing schools of thought on this one. My advisor recommended making the interviews for the places I thought I would like the most in December (not my first interviews so I would be used to the process, but also not January because he thought that by then both the applicants and the programs got tired of the process and usually had a decent idea of who they were already interested in). After going through the interview process, I believe he was right on and would recommend this to future applicants. That said, this is more of a guideline than a rule AND some places only give you 1 or 2 options as for which dates to interview, so it may be out of your hands anyhow.
I would mostly agree with this, if you have the option to. Personally, I didn't, as I made Dec my travel-heavy month (I took it off, so I wanted to schedule the far-away programs that month). I scheduled programs in the same area back-to-back wherever possible to save money (I drove to all but two interviews), so I didn't schedule them based on how high on my list they were. FYI, my pre-interview rank list was completely different than my post-interview rank list.
I went on 13 PM&R interviews and 8 prelims. I also studied/took CK in Nov, as well as TA anatomy to the first years. Dec I took off. Jan I took EM, which meant I had three days off the entire month considering all my interviews, and only because I cancelled an interview. I was definitely getting a little tired towards the end--especially in my last week when I had two prelim interviews at programs I wasn't really interested in. I really just wanted to cancel them... But you want to be careful about canceling interviews--what if that happens to be the program that's the best fit for you?
I really enjoy traveling, and I had a ton of fun, even on those days of 14hrs of driving. I think interviews were the most fun part of 4th year.
Anyway, one tip I'd like to recommend is when possible not to drive more than an hour the morning of your interview. If you're going to do a long drive like I did (or a flight), try your best to get in around 6:00pm or so the day before. That way you have at least an hour or two to take it easy and relax, then do research on the program, and still get at least a solid 8hrs of sleep with plenty of time to get ready and get to the interview early. I actually got an extra 15 minutes of face time with the PD at UCLA because I got there early and the other two applicants were on time or stuck in traffic. The PD happened to be helping set up the breakfast, so we had a bunch of time just to chat.
Sometimes though, you can't do much. I had a 6AM interview the day after a 12-12 shift (ie, an 11:30 to 1:00 shift, getting home at 1:30, then having to wake up around 4:00). And the worst part is they had a morning report right away! I was falling asleep... Good thing it was a prelim that I ended up ranking really low...
