newbie

[westtoles]

traveling from columbus ohio to post falls idaho. Will be leaving july 30th how do I find out out about traffic delays or construction along my route. Also trying to find lodging about every 6-700 miles...just not getting the hang of this

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

Most state DOT sites do post information about construction. Google maps has incorporated traffic and construction information into their program as well. However, I find all of those tools to be hit-or-miss at best. Sometimes they are accurate, but many times they mention a construction project that has little to no impact on traffic, while other times they barely mention a project that's likely to cause significant delays. Basically, it's easiest just to plan t see some level of delay.

For lodging, 600 miles should be the very maximum you are looking to travel each day. 700 miles is too much on a multi-day trip to sustainable, and the end result would be that you'd have to be driving fatigued to cover such distance.

For finding specific places, pretty much every town along an Interstate with at least a couple thousand people is going to have some lodging options. Online mapping programs do make it pretty easy to drag and drop cities that are about 600 miles apart.

In your case, Iowa City/Cedar Rapids, Murdo SD, and Bozeman MT would be the places I would be looking to overnight.

[DonnaR57]

When my husband and I recently traveled across the country, I checked DOT sites. Like Michael said, they were hit-and-miss as to accuracy. Often times, I'd dial 511 on my smartphone, and find that what I was looking for, wasn't on there either.

When it comes to roads, there are two seasons: Winter, and Construction. Expect to find orange cones. On the interstate, these will rarely bring you to a full stop. (That's more likely to happen for an accident.) You will usually continue to cruise along at 45-50 mph, in the cone zone.

I found that even our GPS didn't know everything about traffic delays, either. That was sad. We'd be in one, and our GPS didn't register it -- even with the cord plugged in (ours requires the cord, which contains an antenna, to find traffic issues). My smartphone sometimes found it, sometimes did not.

Murdo has a few choices for overnights, 6 or 7 about half are chains, half are mom-and-pops. Plus about 5 or 6 eateries. Bozeman has all sorts of choices for overnights, and if you don't like those, Belgrade would be worth checking as well. (We stayed in Three Forks earlier this month, but sort of wish we'd stayed in Belgrade instead.)

As far as finding the lodging, there are several ways to go about it. There's a motel finder on this site. You can go to Google and typing in "lodging in XXXXXX, XX" and it will show you what's available in that town. If you have a favorite chain, you can go to that chain's website and see what they have listed for the cities. If you're looking to budget, having (cancellable) reservations ahead of time can be helpful, so that you won't drive up to a place and find out that they are beyond your budget. (That happened to us many times, years ago.) If you are an early-to-rise, early-to-get-off-the-highway traveler, the coupon books found at state information centers, truck stops, and online, can be very helpful as well.



Donna

[Lifemagician]

Frankly why waste your energy trying to avoid construction. As mentioned, it is summer and summer equals construction in most of North America. Like others I too have struck long delays with construction, which was not mentioned on websites.

You could end up spending more time trying to avoid what you think is there, than what the actual construction may delay you.

It is more important to focus on doing this trip in safe, steady, equal days, and not allow yourself to become prone to fatigue.

Lifey