Southwest RoadTrip (Merged from several threads)

[KingofJacks]

I posted on here a while back regarding my planned trip to San Diego in January, well its now official. I along with my gf will be leaving on Jan 3rd for San Diego. Now we have 7 days to make the trek. I looked on a few maps and basically came up with these places...

1. Charleston, West Virginia
2. Nashville, Tenn.
3. Little Rock, Arkansas
4. Dallas, Texas
5. Lubbock, Texas
6. Roswell, New Mexico
7. Albuqureque, New Mexico
8. Flagstaff, Arizona
9. Las Vegas, Nevada
10. San Diego, California

Now this is just the first stab at places to go. We want to take a southern route. Does anyone have any suggestions on where i should go or does this list look good? Some of the places are real weird, i know. Please assist. I want this to be the best experience ever.

King

[Midwest Michael]

What sort of things do you think would make this the "best experience ever?" A great roadtrip means a lot of different things to differnent people.

Just on first glance, there's nothing wrong with your route. However, you might need to save Flagstaff and/or Vegas for another day. This will be even more the case if you hit bad weather and lose a day or two of travel. Those cities are kind of a big zig zag back north if you are going to Dallas and/or Roswell. If you are both driving solo and you both aren't used to driving long distances alone, you might also want to keep your miles down just to keep your sanity.

[KingofJacks]

OK the new list of places has been decided...

Day 1 NJ -> Nashville
Day 2 Nashville -> Dallas
Day 3 Dallas all day with family
Day 4 Dallas -> Denver
Day 5 Denver -> Grand Canyon
Day 6 Grand Canyon -> Vegas
Day 7 Vegas -> LA/San Diego


Hows that look, alot better huh. We will be driving two seperate cars. We will have 4 people going. 2 each car.

[Midwest Michael]

I'm not sure why you'd think adding more than a thousand miles to your trip would make it "better." Your previous idea added a couple hundred miles to the direct route, but if weather was ok, you'd probably be able to do it.

Your new plan is well beyond the limits of reality.

For example, Denver to Dallas is 900 miles. A solid 16 hours on the road, even in perfect conditions. Then after catching a nap, you'd be on the road for just as much time the next day.

All of your other legs between NJ and the Grand Canyon are well beyond 700 miles each - which puts you on the road 13 hours a day minnimum for several days during your week of travel. Simply put, that's not smart or safe.

[AZBuck]

With only 7 days to get from New Jersey to San Diego, and assuming you really will be spending a day in Dallas with family, then you really do not have much choice in either your route or where you will stay each night. Between NJ and Dallas, you will need to stick to (I-76 or I-78)/I-81/I-40/I-30/I-20 with overnight stops in Wytheville, VA and Jackson, TN. That gives you three days of driving, each on the order of 500-550 miles. From Dallas to San Diego, just continue on I-20/I-10/I-8 with stops in Pecos, TX and Benson, AZ leaving you three more solid days of driving, each 450 to 500 miles long. I know it does not sound like an adventurous drive and the cities you'll be stopping in are not cute, romantic or exciting. But they offer good accommodations at reasonably spaced intervals. The sad fact is that the trip you are about to embark on is going to be far more work than pleasure and I think if you come at it with that attitude, you might be able to occasionally reward yourself with a roadside attraction. But if you continue to think that you can do 700 and 800 mile drives day after day after day and enjoy it, you are setting yourself up for a major disappointment

AZBuck

[Mark Sedenquist]

OK the new list of places has been decided...

The other experts (above) have already shared their expertise -- I will add one more -- Professional drivers (who get paid to drive 8-10 hours per day) would never attempt to keep this schedule.

Mark

[qsoundrich]

I understand that people from the East may not realize how big the West really is. It's possible to drive 12 hours from Denver and still be in the state of Colorado. (not all interstate, of course.) So, if you want to have time at the end of the day to relax, I wouldn't go over 600 miles a day MAX, and figure fewer per day if you drive I-70 through Colorado. The shortest route is I-70 through KC, Denver, I-15 through Las Vegas.

I-40 is more heavily traveled cross country because it's easier and much lower elevation over the Continental Divide. If you want to go through Dallas, you're better off Taking I-20 to I-10 and going across the desert southwest. In this case you'd want to go Columbus, OH to St. Louis, Tulsa, OK on I-44.

My advice is to spend the night in Columbus, Ohio and make a decision if you want to stay on I-70 or go south based on the weather. Someone predicted that due to El Nino, there may not be much snow this winter in Colorado, but more in New Mexico.

[KingofJacks]

Well this kind of dampers the plan. Its upsetting but i will take your advice. I figured with two of us switching driving, we could easily do 5 hours each. Thats not too bad is it? Is the weather bad this route?

KoJ

[AZBuck]

Sorry, didn't mean to dampen your enthusiasm, but reality is a stern taskmaster. If I could run a marathon at the same rate I run a hundred yard dash, I could do it in just over an hour. (The world record is twice that.) It's the same with long distance drives. One thinks if they can do 75 mph, they can do 750 miles in 10 hours of driving. But it never works out even close to that. Once you factor in stops to gas up, eat, use rest rooms, etc., and slowdowns for traffic, cities and sights, you're lucky if you can maintain 55 on an hour after hour basis. We have learned from hard experience that, in fact, you can do maybe 57 (on average) in the wide-open west, and only 53 in the more congested east. We're just trying to save you from learning that same painful lesson all over again. And much as you think having multiple drivers and cars will help, it will only help in as much as it will let the drivers share the load. Anytime you add to the number of people involved or the complexity of a task, it slows things down even more.

You probably can take time to see a few things along the way. In fact I'm sure that everyone here would encourage you to do so, if only to take a mental break from driving. But your basic route is going to have to be pretty direct given your time constraints and any sites you visit are going to have to be pretty close to the main highway, no wandering off to Denver.

Weather is simply not predictable any further than 5 days out, so you'll have to keep an eye on it as you travel. Be sure to check the Weather Channel each evening and morning from your motel room, and keep an ear open to local radio (a hoot anyway), and don't press your luck.

AZBuck