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With your time restraints and your desire for warmer weather, I'd probably take the direct I-10/I-8 route from TX to SD. You can make some good time here - West Texas is very desolate and the speed limit on the majority of I-10 west of San Antonio is 80 day, 65 night.
To get from SD to SF, you either have to go through LA or make a significant detour to get around it. There really isn't much really noteworthy between SD and LA, it's primarily urban sprawl. However, the San Diego Safari Park is off I-15 near Escondido if this interests you. North of LA, I'd recommend as much of CA-1 (Pacific Coast Hwy) as you can manage.
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Southwest Dave:
What's a good stop between NYC and Nashville. What about Charlotsville? So that's 1 or nights if you think we should add another stop thats really worth checking out.
Then head to Nashville for 2 nights. I am dying to check the scene there and hope there are outdoor places with music where our dog will be allowed :-s
We can then skip Memphis and directly head down to New Orleans spend more time there. 2 nights in NO.
Then Houston and Auston 1 night each.
AT THIS POINT WE ARE ALREADY ABOUT 8 DAYS IN.
Where is an awesome place to stop after Austin for a night on route to the west coast? Shall we do Arizona or New Mexico? (9 days)
After this leg we could maybe skip San Diego and just head to Venice, CA and do Big Sur all the way up the coast to SF. (3-5 days)
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GLC: See my thoughts below, I look your San Diego tip into consideration and am thinking that maybe we will just ride along the Mississippi river (or other) all the way to Venice Beach? Pacific Coast Highway is the bomb, def want to spend a good amount of time there, does 3-5 days sound good from Venice, CA to SF. What the best route and where should one to stopovers?
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A good overnight stop between NYC and Nashville would be the Roanoke/Blacksburg area.
Nashville to NO is a full day's drive via fastest route (I-65/I-20/I-59), if you want to make that a 2 day drive it's only 70 miles longer going through Memphis.
Austin to SD is a 2.5 day drive via fastest route (I-10/I-8). About the farthest I'd try to stretch each day would be El Paso and Yuma. Neither city is what I'd call "awesome".
The Mississippi River doesn't go anywhere near Venice Beach. To get to Venice Beach from SD is going to get you into some really bad traffic - time of day will make a big difference. It's 135 miles from downtown SD to Venice via I-5/I-405/CA-90. With ZERO traffic (rare ANY time of day) it can be done in just over 2 hours. If you leave SD around 10am, there's a good chance you will make it in 3 hours or so.
If you want to go direct to Venice from TX, that's 3 days via I-10 all the way to Santa Monica. Overnights in El Paso and Phoenix, and expect very heavy traffic in LA.
From there to SF via CA-1, 3 days is pretty reasonable.
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Awesome tips, so this is what we are thinking:
NYC to Roanoke/Blacksburg (1 night)
Roanoke/Blacksburg to Nashville (2 nights)
Nashville to Memphis (1 night) in the name of Elvis!
Memphis to New Orleans (2 nights) - We will most likely be here on xmas eve and xmas day, would that be fun?
Austin (2 nights) - or it worth going to Houston for 1 night and Austin for 1?
There has to be a break between Austin and Venice, CA -- What about New Mexico or maybe we can join Route 66? We would not want to go to Yuma or El Pasa, if it's not an experience.
From Venice, CA we will do the Pacific Coast Highway all the way up to SF and that's the easy part.
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I'm not sure you'd have time to detour up to Route 66 at the pace you've listed so far.
You've already got 8 days spoken for, and as has been said, you are going to need at least 2 overnight stops if you take the direct route to SoCal - which is I-10. The stops in El Paso and Phoenix or Yuma that GLC are really places you'd need to get to if you want to have 3 days for the Coast Highway. There is nothing wrong with any of those places, but you won't really have time to do much, if any exploration in any of them.
If you want to do some of Route 66, then I think you'd be best off skipping the entire LA area - especially if you want time to explore things along the route. You'd be looking at using 2 lane highways to work north from Austin, going through Lubbock and reaching I-40/Route 66 at Santa Rosa NM. I-40/Route 66 could take you to Barstow, and then you could continue heading west on CA-58 and CA-46 through Bakersfield and reach the coast near Morro Bay/Cambria. You'd really need 3 overnight stops on route, looking probably around Clovis, NM, Winslow AZ, and Bakersfield or Barstow, depending upon how much time you spend on Route 66.
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Check this revised version out: http://ow.ly/fGMVM :-)
Is Santa Rosa better to spent the night vs Sante Fe/Albuquerque or Gallup?
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Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Gallup are all way too far away from Austin to work as overnight stops. Santa Rosa is the farthest you should plan on going during that leg. Even that is going to be a very long day considering the non-freeway miles you'll be traveling that day. That is why I previously suggested Clovis.
The only way you will be able to do your revised plan is if are also reducing the amount of time you are spending at some of your eastern stops, spending less time along the Pacific Coast, or planning to spend more than 14 days on this trip.
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What about this route: http://ow.ly/fHbgg (more time in TX, no more super long drives and reduces time in CA as well) or this: http://ow.ly/fHluH
Good plan? :-D
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I don't see how either of those plans are any different than your previous one.
Really, it is going to depend upon how you are using your time. You certainly have time to drive to all these places, but spending multiple nights in several cities is going to quickly chew up any extra time you have.
