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Hi-We are experienced travelers we are driving from Tucson, AZ to Portland, ME. We are having trouble deciding between: 1) Rt 40 to 81 to 84 OR 2) 40 to 44 to 70. Looking for good scenery and a few historic places for our 9 year old daughter. Any recommendations?? Thanks!
Hello and welcome to RTA !
It would be a big help to others if you mentioned how much time you have for the trip and whether it is a one way trip or a round trip. If it's a round trip then taking a different route each way is an option and solves the decision making on the two routes.
thank you...we will be taking two weeks about 250 miles per day. This will be a one way trip.
With 2 weeks your options are endless and you shouldn't limit your self to two route options, instead look at the maps and do a little research and see what grabs your interests. Once you have a few dots on the map you can start to see how best to join them up and we can give meaningful advice. At a 'work like' pace you could complete the journey in 5 days so having 2 weeks does open up many opportunities. I'm sure others will be along with recommendations but in the meantime I would search the forums and trip planning links at the top and bottom of the page for ideas. If you look at the Map centre for example, you can look at tried and tested place reviews within a certain radius of your routes.
Good scenery and history abound on the 40/81/84 route. With that much time, you could head south of the 40 for a bit and see Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Coming north on the 81, you could go over to Waynesboro (use I-64 east) and then head north on Skyline Drive through Shenandoah NP, exiting the NP at Front Royal and use I-66 west to get back on 81 north.
You're fairly close to Gettysburg on the 81 up in PA, too. You also have enough time to shoot over to Philadelphia to see Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, Benjamin Franklin's grave, and more in the historic district.
Boston would be another historical area that would be right along your way, or stop and check out Mark Twain's Connecticut home in Hartford.
You won't have enough time to do all of this. If it were me, and I were settling into Portland ME, I would do the things that are a lot further away. The closer stuff like the Twain home and Boston would be close enough to catch some Spring Break or a super long weekend.
Donna
With as much time as you have and with the interests you have stated, I would take Dave's advice and look well beyond a couple of different Interstate routes. In particular, I would probably want to both swing a little farther south so as to get some more scenery and history, and take roads other than the Interstates to get to a greater number of interesting places and also get a feel for the land and culture that you just can't get from the homogenous superslabs.
Staying south, through Texas and Louisiana, and then following the lower Mississippi Valley, Appalachians and Piedmont Plateau northeastward will take you through a lot of different terrains and biomes as well as through historical sites from the westward expansion back through the Civil War, Revolutionary War and original colonization of the country.
I don't want to give exact routing(s), because what will make this trip special for you and your daughter is taking the time to explore the possibilities and discover those roads and places that you want to see. But a few possible dots and lines that will show you the basic idea I have in mind would be San Antonio (The Alamo), Houston (Manned Space Flight Center), Louisiana Bayou Country, Natchez Trace Parkway, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Virginia's Historic Triangle, Chesapeake Bay area, Poconos/Catskills/Berkshires, Mohawk Trail.
Again, your best option is to get a good-sized map of the US and start marking the places that you all really want to see, and only then start worrying about routes and specific roads. Once you do that you'll have a much better idea of the way you want to go to get from Tucson to Portland. And at that point we can really be of much more help to you than we would be if we tried to give you a route before we (or you) knew what you wanted most out of this trip.
AZBuck