Hi everyone! I'm in the early stages of planning a road trip from Calgary, Alberta to Los Angeles, California around Christmas and was hoping to get some advice with regards to how safe this journey would be. I am planning to go to San Francisco for a couple days as well, and thus my starting point for the return trip would have to be from San Francisco. In the itinerary listed below, I outlined a different path from San Francisco to Calgary that goes through Oregon and Washington; however, if the safer alternative would be to come back the way I came (i.e., through Nevada, Montana, etc), then I'd be happy to take that way as well.
I am driving a 2006 Acura CSX (a Canadian-only model that is basically the same as a Honda Civic) with winter tires (Michelin X-Ice Xi3). I don't have much driving experience in snowy/icy winter conditions, nor do I have much long-distance driving experience (the longest I've driven was from Vancouver to Calgary over 2 days in July), hence my apprehension and posting on this forum - however, at the same time, I feel like I'm a fairly cautious driver and that I need to experience this kind of road trip at some point in my life. This is my itinerary, which I'm hoping is spaced out enough for me to get to LA while driving fairly cautiously:
Calgary -> Los Angeles
Day 1: Calgary to Helena
Day 2: Helena to Salt Lake City (perhaps with a stop in Yellowstone on the way)
Day 3: Salt Lake City to Las Vegas
Day 4: Las Vegas to Los Angeles
San Francisco -> Calgary
Day 1: San Francisco to Bend
Day 2: Bend to Spokane
Day 3: Spokane to Calgary
Thanks everyone!