Moving to Raleigh from Los Angeles! (October target)

[FARKARC]

Thank you everyone who has answered! GREATLY appreciated!

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Where you can plan on staying overnight depends heavily on how many days you ultimately set aside for this drive. If you decide to make it a 'speed run' in 5 days, then your stops would be roughly Gordonsville TN, Fort Smith AR, Amarillo TX and Flagstaff AZ. If you decide to take a somewhat more leisurely (but still workman-like) pace and take 6 days, then overnights would be Kingston TN, Fort Smith AR, Oklahoma City, Santa Rosa NM and Gallup NM. Each of the towns I've listed has at least one of the mid-range national motel chains such as La Quinta, Holiday Inn., Comfort Inn, Best Western, Embassy Suites, Wyndham, etc, etc, etc.

One minor correction to GLC's suggestion: Since you'll be headed west, you'll want to stay on the west side of any larger town/city you end up staying in.

AZBuck

So since we are headed Eastbound, will these same cities apply?

thank you!

[AZBuck]

Yes, the same cities should work. All I did was take your total miles and divide by the number of days to get a rough miles/per day for each case. I then found a medium-sized city at those distances so that each day was approximately that many miles from the last stop, so the same stops should work either way.

AZBuck

[glc]

So since we are headed Eastbound, will these same cities apply?

thank you!

Not really. Gallup is way too far to go first day.

5 days: Winslow AZ, Tucumcari NM, Ft Smith AR, Nashville TN

6 days: Flagstaff AZ, Santa Rosa NM, OKC, Memphis TN, Knoxville TN

[Mark Sedenquist]

Not really. Gallup is way too far to go first day.

I agree that 651 miles is a bit long for the first day. And I agree with your choices.

For the trip I am doing in July, our first night's stop is Gallup, but we are four hours further east than LA.

Mark

[AZBuck]

Thanks, George and Mark. I'm not sure how I got Gallup in the original post. Flagstaff would be more appropriate. There are not a whole lot of options for that area, so Flagstaff would be a good no matter whether the poster takes 5 or 6 days.

AZBuck

[Mark Sedenquist]

Such things happen to all of us--sooner or later. On this trip upcoming, I have a couple 500+ mile days, and I ALWAYS prefer to drive no more than 350 miles per day. But the reality is on a 6,000 mile road trip, one has to push the envelope some days to make that happen within the time constraints.

mark

[DonnaR57]

Not really. Gallup is way too far to go first day.

5 days: Winslow AZ, Tucumcari NM, Ft Smith AR, Nashville TN

6 days: Flagstaff AZ, Santa Rosa NM, OKC, Memphis TN, Knoxville TN

We did San Diego --> Gallup one trip, BUT we were not driving two vehicles, nor were we towing anything. Plus we are very experienced road trippers and were trying to make Denver area on the second night. On our move trip, we chose Flagstaff as our first overnight for one reason: many choices for lodging that included a place to park our truck-trailer combination. Same with Flagstaff--> Tucumcari, we found a place in Tucumcari that had plenty of "truck parking", not so much in Santa Rosa.

We are now to the point where 400-500 mile days are in our comfort zone. We used to push to 600, but as we get older, it's not fun. I laugh and call it "FBS" (flat bottom syndrome) even when we get out every 90-120 minutes to stretch.


Donna