Southwest RoadTrip (Merged from several threads)

[KingofJacks]

Hey all,

My girlfriend and I moving to San Diego from New Jersey in January 07. We are driving seperate cars out. I have a few questions...

1. Whats the best route with regards to weather?
2. Whats the best route for attractions?
3. Is January a bad time to cross country?

Any input would be greatlky appreciated. Thanks alot.


The King

[Mark Sedenquist]

My girlfriend and I moving to San Diego from New Jersey in January 07.

Welcome to the Great American RoadTrip Forum!

1. Whats the best route with regards to weather?

It is too early to make such prediction -- but you will find respondents to this type of query to be evenly divided between I-40 and I-70.

3. Is January a bad time to cross country?

Not really, January is often the milder month for winter storms.

Mark

[KingofJacks]

Thanks alot Mark. Im very excited to do this trek. I will share my expriences with the forum for sure.

Jeff

[twixplz]

I found when travelling across the country in winter that it's better to go as far south as possible. The first time I drove from Northern California to Virginia, I drove down I-40 and it was...to put it plainly, cold. This was in February and many places had snow and ice. In Amarillo we were stuck in a horrible ice storm that took us an entire day to go about 40 miles. Of course weather is different every year so who knows? It might be warm and sunny for you!

The next time I went it was summer (not helpful to you, unfortunately), but I drove down I-10 and it worked very well. I know that the majority of it runs through much warmer climates. Southern Texas, for example (Where I live currently) is only about 40-50F lows in winter. You could either go down I-95 and cut across one of the highways that runs southwest, to get to I-10.

Just my two cents :) Good luck!

[KingofJacks]

I posted on here a while back regarding my planned trip to San Diego in January, well its now official. I along with my gf will be leaving on Jan 3rd for San Diego. Now we have 7 days to make the trek. I looked on a few maps and basically came up with these places...

1. Charleston, West Virginia
2. Nashville, Tenn.
3. Little Rock, Arkansas
4. Dallas, Texas
5. Lubbock, Texas
6. Roswell, New Mexico
7. Albuqureque, New Mexico
8. Flagstaff, Arizona
9. Las Vegas, Nevada
10. San Diego, California

Now this is just the first stab at places to go. We want to take a southern route. Does anyone have any suggestions on where i should go or does this list look good? Some of the places are real weird, i know. Please assist. I want this to be the best experience ever.

King

[Midwest Michael]

What sort of things do you think would make this the "best experience ever?" A great roadtrip means a lot of different things to differnent people.

Just on first glance, there's nothing wrong with your route. However, you might need to save Flagstaff and/or Vegas for another day. This will be even more the case if you hit bad weather and lose a day or two of travel. Those cities are kind of a big zig zag back north if you are going to Dallas and/or Roswell. If you are both driving solo and you both aren't used to driving long distances alone, you might also want to keep your miles down just to keep your sanity.

[KingofJacks]

OK the new list of places has been decided...

Day 1 NJ -> Nashville
Day 2 Nashville -> Dallas
Day 3 Dallas all day with family
Day 4 Dallas -> Denver
Day 5 Denver -> Grand Canyon
Day 6 Grand Canyon -> Vegas
Day 7 Vegas -> LA/San Diego


Hows that look, alot better huh. We will be driving two seperate cars. We will have 4 people going. 2 each car.

[Midwest Michael]

I'm not sure why you'd think adding more than a thousand miles to your trip would make it "better." Your previous idea added a couple hundred miles to the direct route, but if weather was ok, you'd probably be able to do it.

Your new plan is well beyond the limits of reality.

For example, Denver to Dallas is 900 miles. A solid 16 hours on the road, even in perfect conditions. Then after catching a nap, you'd be on the road for just as much time the next day.

All of your other legs between NJ and the Grand Canyon are well beyond 700 miles each - which puts you on the road 13 hours a day minnimum for several days during your week of travel. Simply put, that's not smart or safe.

[AZBuck]

With only 7 days to get from New Jersey to San Diego, and assuming you really will be spending a day in Dallas with family, then you really do not have much choice in either your route or where you will stay each night. Between NJ and Dallas, you will need to stick to (I-76 or I-78)/I-81/I-40/I-30/I-20 with overnight stops in Wytheville, VA and Jackson, TN. That gives you three days of driving, each on the order of 500-550 miles. From Dallas to San Diego, just continue on I-20/I-10/I-8 with stops in Pecos, TX and Benson, AZ leaving you three more solid days of driving, each 450 to 500 miles long. I know it does not sound like an adventurous drive and the cities you'll be stopping in are not cute, romantic or exciting. But they offer good accommodations at reasonably spaced intervals. The sad fact is that the trip you are about to embark on is going to be far more work than pleasure and I think if you come at it with that attitude, you might be able to occasionally reward yourself with a roadside attraction. But if you continue to think that you can do 700 and 800 mile drives day after day after day and enjoy it, you are setting yourself up for a major disappointment

AZBuck

[Mark Sedenquist]

OK the new list of places has been decided...

The other experts (above) have already shared their expertise -- I will add one more -- Professional drivers (who get paid to drive 8-10 hours per day) would never attempt to keep this schedule.

Mark