LA to Atlanta late september/early october

[crazy_monk]

Hello Experts,
Need your advise and suggestions. I am moving with my wife, from LA to Atlanta late september/early october and planning to take a road-trip. Which route shall I take? Google maps shows a I-20/I-40.
The distance is approximately 2200 miles. So I am planning this trip accross 4-5 days.

what will be the weather like? Which route will be more scenic ? I will be taking an old Toyota solara with 130K on it. Need your expert opinion.

[Southwest Dave]

Hello and welcome to RTA !

Your questions are not really answerable to be honest. It is a 4 day drive so if you add a day, you will be able to do a little sight seeing. You should look at a map and do a little research and see what appeals to you and then you decide which route is best based on that. Remember you don't have to take one of 2 routes offered by a computer program, you can choose from many options, if there is something you would like to see. Time to study the maps ! There is no way anyone could predict the weather so far in advance, so that is a case of wait and see right up until a couple of days before you depart. Sure you can look up weather data, but it still has no bearing on what it will do this year at the exact time you travel. If you haven't visited the Grand canyon NP, that would be a big plus for starting out towards I40 imo. Once you have a couple of dots on the map, with an idea of where you are heading, I'm sure we will come up with some ideas along that route. The RTA map centre has plenty of listed attractions and would be a helpful place to start.

[Lifemagician]

If you are interested in which route would be more scenic, and considering you have a day up your sleeves, follow Dave's advice and look at good detailed maps. You can't beat the detail on maps such as produced by AAA and Rand McNally. On these maps the scenic routes are highlighted.

I know there are stretches of I-40 which I found stunning (have never driven I-20), but you may be able to interchange between interstates and other scenic routes which run (almost) parallel.

Lifey

[AZBuck]

As others have pointed out, you basically have two choices, both of which would take about four days, leaving a full day for sight seeing. One would be to head up I-15 to I-40 and follow that to Memphis then take US-78 (near freeway quality) to Birmingham and I-20 into Atlanta. The other would be to take I-10 into west Texas and I-20 the rest of the way to Atlanta. Having driven both routes, I would suggest the I-15/I-40/US-78/I-20 routing. It's marginally shorter in both distance and time, but not enough to tip the balance. What does is the number of attractions along it where you could spend an hour or two each day to break up the drive. That and the fact that I-10/I-20 through west Texas is one visually 'uninteresting' stretch of road. Highlights along the 'I-40' route include Petrified Forest National Park, Petroglyph National Monument, the Cadillac Ranch, the Oklahoma City Memorial, and Memphis (Beale Street, Graceland, Mud Island, Sun Studios).

AZBuck