Help establishing a route from PA to warm south west in Jan

Go as far south as you can as quick as you can and then hang a right!!
Insert smiley face (here)

Whizbang wrote:
The interesting and unfortunate thing about the west is that so much of it is a high elevations. Sure, Tucson, Yuma, and Phoenix are nice, but head up to Flagstaff, Santa Fe, or Moab and freeze your pipes off. Been there, done that.

....yeah; we, too :B New Mexico mid/late-mid May can be a freezer. We had a snow squall on the Chaco Plateau 3rd week of May LOL! The southwest (most of it) is way too elevated for us during winters (Borrego and Phoenix and Yuma and similar southern geographies excepted...)

kohldad nailed it. Good advice.

The interesting and unfortunate thing about the west is that so much of it is a high elevations. Sure, Tucson, Yuma, and Phoenix are nice, but head up to Flagstaff, Santa Fe, or Moab and freeze your pipes off. Been there, done that.

The advice to follow the coast south then cut across Texas is spot on. We have a nearly identical problem. The DW wants to go south this winter WITHOUT going down I5 toward LA or San Diego.

We are probably taking a more direct route Seattle to Boise to SLC to ABQ?? Hah, our winter snowbird trip will probably be in April. Hopefully Phoenix won't be 100 degrees...

Go south then west and you will be fine.

Weather permitting, I'd probably take the more direct route. Take I-70 to St. Louis, then I-44 to Oklahoma City, then I-40. Cut a lot of miles off the coastal route. Of course, this depends on how much of the trip is the drive and how much is the destination. Perhaps one route out and the other back? In which case I'd save the shorter route for the drive home.

This past spring we went west on rt 66 it's a nice drive. Don't know how it would be in January. Death Valley is warm and if you have the time stay and catch the cactus blooms in all the deserts. Safe Travels

Kohldad wrote:
Head due south to SC or GA first, then turn west hugging as close to the coast as weather requires. Sit in south east Texas watching the weather and when there is a warm-up between cold fronts, make a dash across NM into southern AZ where you shouldn't have to worry about cold weather again as long as you stay in the lower elevations. Then mosey along to where ever in CA.

....wow. This is excellent advice. I wouldn't change a thing.

This will be our 6th year doing "....the east-coast dash..." to the south on the I-95 from north of Albany (running the I-87 lake-effect snow gauntlet), near end of January. The only difference for us is: we keep heading south through Florida, rather than taking an L at Jacksonville towards the west on the I-10 however, if /when we do head west for winter, this is precisely how we'd tackle it :)

Use the NOAA site link and make your decisions about routes based on the forecast.

Last week you would have been better off using I-40 this week either I-10/20 or I-40 will work.

The link has a lot of information but I find the Graphical maps the most useful. You can click ahead by 12 hour increments and then see the weather, precip, wind, etc. by going to the left hand columns and moving through the time blocks.

As a generality using I-10 or I-20 is best in winter, but watch the forecast even in Yuma. Most years we do not get what I would call winter weather except for a week or two here in Southern NM and generally it is warmer in AZ but not always :)

We are also headed south in Jan with our camper. We are meeting up with friends from Home who have been snowbirding in the south west USA for 19 winters now. We are headed to the Yuma area, which they say is “usually” the warmest area in the winter. They camp on BLM land south of Yuma so that’s where we are heading
Going to be two long days of driving for us to get to the Lawn chair and short sleeved shirt area, and we can’t wait.
Soup.

I assume you are familiar with
www.militarycampgrounds.us
they have all the info on those along the way.
I'd just hop from base to base in one direction with some boondocking in the long gaps between bases. The other direction hit the parks you miss otherwise. RGV, Big Bend etc. There are enough bases to make use of to avoid some of the problems most experience with not being able to find a park for basing out of to tour an area.

Head due south to SC or GA first, then turn west hugging as close to the coast as weather requires. Sit in south east Texas watching the weather and when there is a warm-up between cold fronts, make a dash across NM into southern AZ where you shouldn't have to worry about cold weather again as long as you stay in the lower elevations. Then mosey along to where ever in CA.