Chicago, IL to Port Isabel.

Wife and I left that dreaded state of Illinois 3 years ago to begin our full time adventures. We eventually ended up in Port Aransas TX which is just north of North Padre island on mustang island. Never made it down to south Padre where you are going but heard good things. Anyway as far as the journey I just drove back up here to the Midwest and currently in Michigan but heading back through the suburbs of Chicago in a month or so. I would catch I57 heading south at some point and avoid St Louis and reconnect with 55 into Arkansas to I40 but I will say that the stretch of road between west Memphis and little rock is horrible. It was bad 3 years ago when I was heading south and still bad 2 months ago coming back up. Once past little rock it really is a nice drive into Texarkana. Degray lake state park is in there and really nice camping. Bypassing Dallas to the south onto the infamous 35 corridor is a serious road from Hillsboro through San Antonio. The construction is everywhere and narrow lanes and the combination of high speed limits and truckers that will let you know they own the road. I pull a 39' tt and a few times almost got clipped by some big rigs passing in a construction zone with shifting lanes so had quite a few white knuckle moments. You're good to go once past San Antonio and someone above mentioned that bypass toll road but I'm not familiar with it however I know people like it. As far as taking the back roads through Texas one thing to consider is that many of those roads are two lanes with high speed semi truck traffic either coming at you or riding you're bumper because you're not driving 75. A lot of oil field truck traffic and some are rough so you have to decide where you are more comfortable. Sorry for the essay