Ardmore, Okla., to Port Aransas, Texas

We towed our trailer to Port Aransas and Rockport last year. We too avoided San Antonio like the plague. We did go through Corpus Christi to Padre Island, camped there, then headed north to Port Aransas. We used the ferry on a weekday with no wait at all. When we left the wonderful Goose Island State Park campground near Rockport, we went to Victoria and took US 77 on the way north. Other than a lot of hills, it is a great road, but we were not in a hurry and had no schedule. If you get hungry, there are lots of places selling German deli sandwiches, Czech kolaches, smoked turkey and sausage, and BBQ to stop at along that highway.

If you want a more scenic route than US 77 or US 183 and have a lot of time, go west from I-35 at Gainesville, as others have suggested, through Bowie to US 281 and go south through the Texas Hill Country. Before you get to San Antonio, turn east on Texas 46 and go through New Braunfels (another town with great German-Czech food and BBQ) to Seguin. Texas state highways are generally as good as US highways in most other states. At Seguin, you can take I-10 east to either US 183 or US 77 and head south again.

DO NOT take Texas 123 south from Seguin or try to use US 181. From Karnes City to Beeville and west to Uvalde and Carrizo Springs, the roads are incredibly congested (traffic jams in the middle of nowhere) due to all the drilling, hydrofracturing, pipeline construction, and road rebuilding going on in the Eagle Ford Shale. There are NO places to even stop and eat lunch because every parking lot big enough for an RV is filled to overflowing with brand-new white Ford F-250 4x4's driven by hungry drilling and construction crews. If you think Dallas-Fort Worth traffic is bad, try Three Rivers at lunch time (ask me how I know!).

LarryJM wrote:

sigbowman wrote:
We plan a drive from Oklahoma to Port Aransas, avoiding I-35 in Texas to stay away from traffic in Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio. Any suggestions for the best alternate route would be greatly appreciated. Our RV is a 30' Class A with tow car.

Is this a trick question:h I-35 doesn't go anywhere near San Antonio and goes a good 10 to 15 miles west of the beltway around Dallas and there is a beltway by-pass around Fort Worth. I don't understand why you would want to try and avoid I-35 anyway.:S

Larry

Larry, Are you kidding me!!! I-35 goes right thru the middle of Dallas (I-35E), Ft Worth (I-35W) and San Antonio. Traffic is bad in all the towns on I-35. Use all the bypasses.

Well, we came to Port A this weekend and drove a different route than normal. Ran into road construction, rough highway and traffic the whole way. I strongly suggest avoiding 123. We only changed our route because we thought we would be arriving at a bad time on Friday afternoon to avoid long ferry wait. I think I would have rather waited in line for the ferry because not only did we run into traffic/construction on 123 but also on the causeway crossing over to North Padre. We sat in line before the causeway for 30 minutes and then on the bridge for another 30. They had traffic down to one Lane going our direction on the bridge then traffic was also backed up at the light at 361...made for a mess.

As I said on April 23, DO NOT take Texas 123!

Unfortunately, I must have missed that part :(. Regardless, I agree...very bad option and very rough road. We are headed home now and taking our normal route, US 183 to 130 Toll...we like this route the best.