Colorado to Florida in 5 days

[ernie]

Thanks in advance for your time and help. I have to drive for work a van from Aspen, CO to Miami, FL and have 5 days maybe 6, in August. I have never been outside of Florida. Any suggestions for must see places in such short time frame? I’m traveling with a girl that have make this trip several times in three days and knows the route.

[Mark Sedenquist]

What size van will this be? Welcome to the Great American RoadTrip Forum! What kinds of things interest you? Five days is a reasonable stretch of time to make this run.

Mark

[Mark Sedenquist]

Never out of Florida and picking up a van in Aspen? Wow, what a treat...

OK, I would head east on CO-82 over Independence Pass (12,000 feet) and then head south on US-24 and take a quick soak at the Mt. Princeton hot springs -- the last time I was there is was snowing -- but is very nice.

When you get to US-50 (if you can justify the detour in terms of time) I would go west past Gunnison to Montrose and then follow US-550, the Million Dollar Highway to Durango -- you will see incredible country.

Staying on US-550 to Albuquerque -- here are some things to see in Albuquerque.

I-40 follows much of the old route 66 as you head east.

A good start for an incredible road trip adventure.

Mark

[ernie]

I’m driving from Aspen, CO to Miami, FL in five days. Thanks to Mark suggestions on a previous thread I decided to star this way:

Day one:
Aspen to Durango on US-550 (Million dollar Highway) visit Durango and stay 1st night (260 miles).

After this I would like to see St. Louis but this will take an extra stop, Any suggestions of a fast but nice route and maybe a must see place before St. Louis., MO And from MO to Miami another city that will be nice to stay and another nice route to enjoy on the trip. I prefer scenery roads and not to congested cities. Do you guys think that this can be done in 5 days?. This is my first road trip. Any advice will help.

Thanks in advance for your time and suggestions.

[Midwest Michael]

5 days is reasonable to make this trip, but if you spend day one going to Durango, you pretty much use up your extra time on that first day. From that point, you'll have to focus on just getting to your destination, being on the road for 500-600 miles a day, especially if you want to detour back to St. Louis.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you haven't had a chance to do any exploring of Colorado, but it is a factor that you need to consider.

From Durango to St. Louis, you'd pretty much take US-160 across southern Colorado (great sand dunes isn't too far off this road, and you might be able to squeeze it in) up I-25 to Colorado Springs, and then cut over to I-70 for your trip to St. Louis. Colby, KS would probably be a good spot to spend the night.

Continuing onto Miami, you'll still have to keep to the Interstate, heading through Nashville and Chatanooga, probably stopping for the night in Atlanta or Macon, GA. Each of those 4 days would be pretty well spread out and require about 10 hours a day on the road.