Stopping point from Chattanooga to St. Louis

[JayL]

Hi! I'm new on this forum and would like to get some suggestions/ideas for our trip planning.

Just a quick background. Our road trip starts from Illinois to the Great Smokey Mountains, then to Chattanooga. From Chattanooga, we will drive to St. Louis where we catch the plane back to CA. We have overnight stop/s from IL to TN. From Chattanooga, we will take I-24 to I-64 to STL. We prefer to stop somewhere for the night as our flight is not until the following day at noon. Can you please suggest a good stopping point?

Thank you so much.

[AZBuck]

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

You've got a few competing requirements that you'll need to balance in picking your overnight stop. You'll need to get far enough that you can easily get to Lambert Field in a couple of hours the next morning, but not so far that you're already in the St. Louis area (unless you want to quickly visit some of St; Louis' attractions such as the Arch, Museum of Westward Expansion, Zoo, etc.). You'll more than likely want a quiet area so that you can get one final night's good sleep before your flight home. And you'll likely want an area with some outdoor areas to complement your earlier visit to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Putting all those together, I think you should be looking at somewhere around Mt. Vernon IL. It's at the junction of two major Interstates, I-64 and I-57, so you should have a good choice of lodgings. It's only a couple of hours from St. Louis, and is surrounded by a number of nature sites including Wayne Fitzgerrell State Park and Rend Lake State Fish & Wildlife Area.

AZBuck

[DonnaR57]

Another place to stop, far enough away from St Louis to get a little quiet but close enough to the airport, might be in the Granite City/Cahokia area. In that area, there's room for a couple of hours at the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, or if you don't have a couple of hours, the World's Largest Catsup Bottle in Collinsville.

All these are about an hour and a half from Lambert field.


Donna

[glc]

I would get closer than Mount Vernon - with a noon flight you need to get to the airport around 10 and you may have to deal with rush hour traffic. I'd probably stop in O'Fallon IL or Fairview Heights.

Depending on timing, I'd also consider staying out in the western suburbs - St. Charles or St. Peters or O'Fallon MO.