Driving to SF from WI, need help! 1st time road-tripper

[Heidi]

I am relocating from Appleton, WI to San Francisco, CA at the end of September 2003. I will be driving. I have never made this trip before and
have no idea what the best/safest/fastest route is to drive. Anyone know of good, cheap hotels along the way too?

[Mark Sedenquist]

For most roadtripper's tastes, those three qualifiers, ("Best/Safest/Fastest") might be mutually exclusive. Well, as you already know it is about 2200 miles. Nearly every paved route in the USA is "safe". Most direct routing would include traveling along I-90 to I-80. If you use the Directions Tab on the mappoint.msn.com site you can get a good route, with all of the known construction zones and general information for this route of march.

There is ample posting on this forum about inexpensive motels. But for my choice, I always prefer Best Western motels, tend to have much nicer accomodations and decent high-speed accessiblity for pennies more than the "bargain" chains who provide none of those traveler services.