Relocating to Minneapolis, MN from San Francisco

[kbear131]

Hi!

I'm relocating to Minneapolis, MN from San Francisco to start a new job by April 1st. I have 5 to 6 days to do the drive. I'll have a second driver with me the entire time, so I can do a long time distance.

I'm thinking about driving north to Seattle, then Vancouver then taking Canada highway 1 all the way to Minnesota. I've been on I-80 and I-94, so I wanted to see something new.

Do you have any suggestions on quickest way, but yet can see some great scenery and some fun places to stop?

Thanks!

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA forum! 5 to 6 days is a nice amount of time to make this trip, however, it is not unlimited time. I'll also warn you that having 2 drivers is only of very limited help when it comes to driving long distance. It certainly is not a case of one person can drive 500 miles in a day, so 2 people should be able to drive 1,000.

I don't think you have enough time to drive via Vancouver and the TransCanada. That pushes your trip up to 2700 miles, and most of the TransCanada is not freeway. I'd want a minimum of a week to go that way.

A couple possibilities that would be easy with your timeframe, but provide a different option to the ones you'd said you've done before would be to head up to Yellowstone and then head across I-90 back to MN. Another one would be to take US-50 (the loneliest road) across Nevada and then take I-70 across the Colorado Rockies. Even going all the way down to I-40, and picking up parts of Route 66, might interest you.

[AZBuck]

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

Yes, you can indeed take the route you suggest, and yes, it will be quite scenic, and yes, you can do it in 6 days. But will it be fun? Hardly. Will it be even mildly enjoyable? Possible, I suppose, but I seriously doubt it. Remember that the Trans Canada Highway is NOT an Interstate or even freeway quality road. In fact, through the Rockies it is for the most part a two lane road with limited passing opportunities, and you will be sharing that road with every trucker, RV, trailer, etc. The other problem is that in order to do what you outline, you'd have to be driving pretty much every daylight hour. Two people will help with sharing the workload, but it doesn't make the car go any faster. It will make all your restroom, meal, and other breaks take longer, however. There just won't be a lot of time for stopping to enjoy the scenery rolling by outside your window, and the romanticism of being on a RoadTrip starts to wear pretty thin around the third day of just sitting and driving. Finally, if you are actually transporting any of your belongings on this drive, then crossing the borders becomes problematic in that you may be required to prove that you don't plan to sell any of it while in Canada, and/or that you didn't buy any of it there when returning to the States.

All of this is by way of pointing out that you'd be much better served by taking a shorter route that didn't entail a nearly thousand mile detour and two international border crossings. There is certainly no lack of scenery between San Francisco and Minneapolis, including the Sierra Nevada, Great Basin, Rockies, and Great Plains and such venues as the Great Salt Lake, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone and the Badlands on a route that will allow you time to actually get out of the car.

AZBuck