Southern California to Connecticut ONE WAY - help

[surfsnowgirl]

I will be driving from Southern California to Fairfield County Connecticut in early to mid December. Its just me, my cat and my car with a ton of stuff in it. I have no furniture and don't want to do any sightseeing.

The "fastest" route is through Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Ilinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut.

My concern is that I have a convertible and want to avoid "serious" winter driving so going through Colorado and the "upper midwest" probably isn't the best route

I'll be leaving in a month or so and need to start getting my route in place. Any tips on routes and such would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Kim

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

The simple fact of the matter is that there is no way of know at this point which route will have the best weather, and thus be the fastest. Every single cross country route can and does see snow and ice. Its entirely possible that during the time of your trip that Colorado and the upper midwest could see perfect conditions, while there are snow and ice storms across Arizona and the southern plains.

Really the best thing you can do is lay out a few different options, watch the weather forecasts for the time you'll be traveling, then then try to make your decision as late as possible. Even that isn't fool proof, and you may have to still stop and wait out a storm. Its just a fact of life for winter travel.

[glc]

It shouldn't matter what kind of top your car has - soft or hard - as long as it doesn't leak.
Where exactly in Fairfield County? This makes a difference with the best routing.

[surfsnowgirl]

Thanks for your replies :). I think I will lay out a few routes. I would prefer to go the "fastest" so weather permitting I'll plan to go the Colorado, etc route. As stated, the weather could be fine when I'm driving through there so I will just watch the weather like a hawk, have a route plan b in mind if necessary and other wise just plan to get a hotel room for the night if I come into any weather. I'll know in the next couple weeks about my job situation so that will help me plan a little more precisely.

No my convertible top is a soft and doesn't leak at all. My reason for mentioning my convertible is that its sort of a sports car, and albeit front wheel drive, its obviously not a 4 x4 so I want to avoid being on some ultra bad mid western interstate in the middle of a brutal snow storm :)

Where I live all depends on the job scenario which will settle in the next couple weeks.

My destination will probably be Shelton (fairfield county), Branford (new haven county) or another possibility will be Meriden (New Haven county).

[Midwest Michael]

I will say that between the 3 major cross country routes from the southwest to the Northeast (I-80, I-70, I-40) your total travel time isn't going to be all that different. You're really talking about a difference of around 100 miles on a 3,000 mile trip. Over the course of the 5-6 days, any small delay here or there could quite easily make any one of the routes faster than another. In other words, don't feel like you have to take I-70 as automatically the fastest. If there is something you'd like to see on those other options, you can consider them too and it won't have a dramatic impact on your travel time.

Car wise, front wheel drive cars are really quite good in snow. If its a sports car, you may end up with a little more power than you'd want for snow driving, and I'd guess your tires probably will be more geared for "high performance" than winter traction, but that shouldn't be too bad. Probably the single most overrated thing there is for winter driving is 4 wheel drive. Yes, it can be helpful, in some situations, but there is far more hype and marketing than actual utility. Up until about 10-20 years ago, it was pretty rare for the average family to have 4 wheel drive, even in very snowy climates.

[glc]

Okay, with proposed locations in that part of the county/state, I'd use one of the following options:

If you are coming across PA on I-80, take I-81 to Scranton, then I-84 into CT. If you are coming across I-70 or anything else down that way, pick up I-81 in Harrisburg, then I-78 into NJ to I-287, take that all the way across the Tappan Zee Bridge to I-684, then take the Hutchinson River Pkwy to the Merritt Pkwy (CT-15). The bottom line is you want to avoid the NYC area as much as possible, and also avoid I-95 anywhere between NYC and New Haven.

My mapping software shows I-15/I-70/I-76/I-80 as the fastest way. Taking I-40/I-44/I-70/I-76 only adds about an hour.