Travel routes

As several people have said - define what you consider a 'best' route?

As an example

For me the best route from San Antonio to Davis Mountains State Park near Fort Davis in far west Texas is US-90, with an overnight stop near Del Rio or at Seminole Canyon State Park.

But I'm not on a time schedule.

While we were park hosting at the park in November and December - several times we had rigs pull in that had towed directly from San Antonio to the park down I-10 - 9 to 10 hours straight towing often arriving after midnight.

They were on a limited time schedule - coming to take advantage of a few days off from school with their kids.

We are retired old farts, and we prefer to travel on weekdays - get setup well before the weekend crowd arrives.

I use Streets & Trips for detail planning - but a look at a map is always the first step. Interstate highways were designed to be the easiest, fastest way to get from place to place.

And I drive a lot of interstate miles - especially when my objective is to get to a certain location. But when we have time - I prefer US highways and a less hectic traffic situation/ pace.

What is your preference?

I use Streets and Trips and supplement with Mountain Directory West. I have Mountain Directory East, but rarely use it. I've heard that MS is going to stop publishing S & T. Not enough sales volume. I'm still using the 2010 version of S & T. There aren't many if any expressways that aren't on there already, although it probably isn't current when it comes to RV and National Park camping locations. But Good Sam's RV Travel and Campground Guide is published annually and makes a good supplement.

Yhe trouble with so many so-called helpful routing apps assume that you have internet access at all times. This is not the real world.

Delorme seems to be the only thing left available in stand alone mapping software. Still using Streets & Trips here. Much better to have the hands on ability to change the route on the fly using the map to pick & choose how we want to go.

Try using any of the internet based mapping in the mountains, up in the far north of far away from the main highways where there is no cell service in the west.

There is a problem with your question. What is your interpretation of "best travel route". Do you mean fastest?, flatest? most scenic?

There are several as noted. The problem with using an on-line app is that all the paper you print is good until you make the first change. Delorme Street Atlas and CoPilot are the remaining laptop packages.

Matt

The best route is the one you enjoy the most not the shortest or longest. Check the net to see whats between you and your destination and go the way that looks best as far as things to see or do. Enjoy the journey.

Another alternative to Streets And Trips is Delorme Street Atlas. I am trying to learn it after having used S & T for years. Time will tell how I like it.

No books. There are computer apps, phone apps, and online services that will calculate travel routes for you, and include intermediate destinations if you have those, and possibly travel preferences.

For a lengthy trip, there is no "best" travel route because that is subjective, a compromise that depends on a traveler's preferences for several factors that must be balanced: travel time, distance, cost, avoidance of cities, mountain roads, toll roads, heavy traffic, etc. I travel several times a year between NE Oklahoma and southern Michigan and there are hundreds of different ways to go, and there are about eight equally good route variations I regularly use today, depending on season, weather, and what time of the week. These are not the same routes I used 35 years ago because the roads and city congestion problems have changed over time.

Most online and computer route calculations will assume you want minimum travel time using superhighways and toll roads as much as possible, and might take you on a longer route, more distance and time, to keep you on that type of road.

I've used Microsoft Streets and Trips (no longer available) for the past ten years because this program makes it easy for me to force my preferences in the planning, and to quickly try a lot of options to see what might better suit my needs for a particular trip.

No, but there are a zillion that CLAIM to do so.

Google Maps or Microsoft Streets and Trips I use both. Streets and Trips lets you say if you want the quickest or shortest plus has a lot of other options like construction updates etc.

My wife has a smart phone that does it all.

there used to be an insurance company that had books on all the states and their tourist traps but I haven't seen that around since the 90's. now you just get on the web and type in the state you are going to visit and see what they have to offer.