Moving to Seattle From Raleigh NC in Late August

[SeattleBound425]

I will be moving to Seattle WA in late August with my 2 cats and my dog in my trusty 2003 Nissan Mazima. I had my trip all planned out until about thirty minutes ago when I realized you could drag your route around mapquest and google maps. I would really like to hit Denver and Possibly make a stop in San Francisco and then make my way north from there vs. going completely north from the beginning. What if any are the cons of doing this. The trip seems to only have about 10 additional hours tacked on to it and maybe 100 dollars in gas. I really do wanna take the more economical route however I've never been farther than Florida on vacation and would really like to make this trip amazing and truly enjoy myself along the way. ANY suggestions would be helpful.

[Southwest Dave]

Hello and welcome to RTA !

You are not the first or the last person to think that they only have the route choices offered by a mapping programming, when in fact we can go anywhere we want. What did we do before computers ! Lol. In fact you should have good old paper maps when you travel and they are great for planning as well. The only thing you need to decide upon is where you want to go and then whether you have the time available to do it. Speaking of time, once again do not rely on a computer programs estimated travel time. A computer does not need to sleep, eat, stretch limbs or fill with gas and go to the bathroom. Nor does it live in an imperfect world where traffic congestion and construction can make a difference. For planning purpose, it will take 9-10 hours to cover between 500 and 600 miles on highway with appropriate stops.