Advice on a road trip from Los Angeles, CA to Springdale, Arkansas

[Motorider]

My son and I are planning to do a road trip from Los Angeles, CA to Springdale, Arkansas later this month. I have never driven this far east before from the west coast. Anybody done this before? I did a MapQuest on the trip and its 1584 miles and 23 hours of driving time. It routes me through I40 east through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and finally Arkansas. Springdale is in the northwest corner of Arkansas. We are budgeting 3 days to make this trip. I see this having to stop and rest twice overnight along the way - perhaps first stop in Flagstaff, AZ and second on Amarillo, TX. Some people are saying it can be done with one overnight stop in the middle like Albuquerque, NM and driving 10+ hours a day. What's realistic for this roadtrip with two drivers? How is I40 like this time of the year? Any interesting sites to see along the way? Any feedback would be appreciated. Thank you

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

You are very wise to plan to take 3 days for this trip. It is simply to far to safely do in 2 days.

One thing you should know is that mapquests times are simply not accurate in real world conditions, because they don't factor in the basic slowdowns and stops are will happen on any long haul roadtrip. Realistically, this trip will require being on the road for 26-27 hours, so you're already going to be looking at being on the road for 8-9 hours a day as it is. Trying to drive 13+ hours on back to back days would be an exhausting experience that certainly wouldn't be fun, and really would put you in a position where you'd be pushing your bodies to their physical limits.

You did a pretty good job of picking stopping cities, although I'd suggest you might want to get a bit farther on day one and shoot for Winslow or Holbrook AZ. Amarillo will be a good choice for day 2.

The nice thing is that you should have time for a few short stops along the way. Your trip mostly follows the path of old route 66, so there are several spots where you can get off an explore some of the towns and neon that still exist just along the old road. There are also lots of parks along the way, like Walnut Canyon and Sunset Crater National Monuments, The Petrified Forest/Painted Desert, to name a few. Albuquerque and OK City are both cities with several interesting attractions too.

[glc]

You have to go stand on the corner in Winslow! You can also spend the night in Holbrook in a wigwam.

If you guys like good steaks, dinner at the Big Texan in Amarillo is worth it. I recommend the ribeye, whatever size you feel you can handle. The motel on premises isn't bad either.

Take your time, don't push it. Take the full 3 days and don't even bother driving after dark.