Jacksonville, Florida to Fort Collins, Colorado

Hey everyone, brand new user to the site! Myself and 3 friends are planning to move from Florida to Colorado march 1st! The plan being to leave Jacksonville at roughly 5am then head towards I-70 then over to Colorado, that is the route my Google Maps app is telling us to take but is it the fastest option? The goal is to get there as quickly as possible and seeing there's 4 of us we want to utilize some kind of rotation, we will have a dog with us so some stops are needed along the way! Any advice and preferably some noteworthy photo-ops we can snag while walking the dog and stretching, thanks!


-Jordan

Welcome!

The fastest route is I-10/I-75/I-24/I-57/I-70/I-25. This is an 1800 mile trip and normally we would recommend 2 overnight stops. I get the impression that with 4 drivers, you think you can drive it straight through. DON'T. At the very least, stop halfway and get a hotel room and get 8 hours of REAL sleep, not just napping in the back seat of a moving car. Stop every 3 hours to stretch, walk the dog, and switch drivers. Your halfway point would be around Mt. Vernon, IL. The Motel 6 is cheap and pet-friendly. You will be on the road for approximately 16 hours each day.

Here is an article on how to properly manage a "speed run" which is what you appear to want to do.

Hi Jordan, and Welcome to The Great American RoadTrip forum.

You don't actually say how much time you have allocated for this trip. If your intention is to drive straight through without stopping to sleep, then I am afraid it is back to the drawing board. At 1800+ miles this is far too much to consider driving straight through, even with four drivers.

It is not possible to get restful sleep in a moving car. You will all end up utterly exhausted, and in no fit state to drive. When fatigue sets in it is similar to driving under the influence, and just as dangerous. You will end up being a hazard to yourselves as well as to everyone else on the road. You need to allow at least 2.5 days though 3 days would make for a much more doable trip.

Lifey

Thanks for the quick replies! I'm fairly sure that we don't have any big time constraints that would force us to drive non-stop, I'm used to flying most places so I underestimated the drive-time, so were definitely going to need to plan an overnight stop. Since we're not going the way of an unsafe trip now, how about some sights? :)

If you don't have any real time restraints, you could make this a fairly leisurely trip with multiple overnight stops, and you wouldn't necessarily have to take the fastest all-Interstate highways. Get a good paper map - you and your friends could look along the general route for things that YOU want to see. Start putting some "dots" on the map and your route will start to take form.

As you consider sights to see and places to stop remember that it's still Winter and many places that normally cater to sightseeing and tourists are on reduced hours or just plain closed. Museums would be one such category.