Favorite way to skip the interstates?

[dedmiston]

I get lazy with my routing sometimes and rely too much on Google Maps and my in-dash nav.

It’s easy enough to skip the interstates in an area you’re familiar with, but I’d be interested in hearing some suggestions for finding the routes less traveled when you don’t know the area.

[paulj]

I toured the Blue Ridge Parkway, starting from Chicago, around 1990, before internet or gps navigation. Clearly print maps were important, but also books. I was getting into geology at the time, and had picked up a geological tour book, the kind written for day trips during conventions. The other was Roadfood, a guide to best and regional restaurants. At one Virginia restaurant, the waitress asked if I was using that book, based on what I'd ordered.

Come to think of it I used to hear the Sterns on NPR's Splendid Table. Now there are a lot more sources of information on food options - other books, Food Network (haven't watched that in years), youtubers. Now I'm using Google Maps more for that. Often though it seems to be easier to find a park and picnic (for lunch) than to find a suitable restaurant, especially on hotter days when we can't leave the dog in the car alone.

[dedmiston]

Sorry I've been a ghost in my own thread.

I appreciate the responses (most of them) and the insights. ("Get a map and learn to use it" might be one of the most condescending things I've read here in ages. Lordy lord.)

I don't remember where I was when I posted this, but I had given myself a week or so to drive by car from Orlando to southern California. I've already made this trip a bunch of times this year (it's a long story), and I wanted to see more of our heartland and spend less time breaking the speed limits.

I ended up going north through GA, SC, NC, and into VA to catch the Blue Ridge Parkway for a while. Such a gorgeous drive.

After that I decided to keep using my nav, but to quit giving it major cities as destinations. I didn't have a copilot to help me navigate this time and didn't have the energy in the evenings to study the maps and make notes for myself, so I just kind of fooled my Google Maps app by feeding random rural towns into it as my destinations and making big ugly zig-zag sutures across the gash of the interstates.

This worked for me until I made it through TN, KY, IL, and MO (and hitting many of these states more than once along the way).

I finally pooped out in Kansas and jumped on I-70 across the plains until I hit Denver and crossed the Rockies into Utah. From there I-15 is a pleasant and familiar drive and I took it most of the way home until I couldn't deal with the nutty traffic anymore and switched back to the smaller highways.

It was a beautiful way to see a good slice of America without dealing with I-10 and I'd probably do it again.

We live in a beautiful place and I always feel sorry for the folks who don't get out to see it.

Thanks again for all of your input and sorry again to be the typical disappearing OP.

[LMHS]

Basically it boils down to this. There is no one solution to traveling. Some folks like US/SR highways, some like interstates and others like a mix of the two. Sometimes there just aren't any interstates that will take me where I want to go but there is a US/SR. Sometimes there isn't a good US/SR highway that will take me where I want to go but a short stretch of interstate highway is available. Contrary to what many think, there is no one single option that is right. They are all right. I find that the US/SR highways are less tiring to travel on. And many of the ones I have been on are 3 and 4 lanes in addition to the two lanes.

I have also noticed that a great many truckers have shifted off sections of the interstates. Sometimes, I can just make better time on a US Hwy than on the interstate. I have a often used route that will add 60 miles to my drive but cut 1 hour of "drive time" off a trip simply by avoiding Atlanta and all the traffic. I like the route, I like the countryside and I'm not as tired at the end of the 5 hour/265 mile trip as I am when I have to go thru Atlanta. And to me, that is very important. A tired driver is a dangerous driver.

[valhalla360]

pianotuna wrote:
I hate the interstates, as I drive slowly to conserve fuel and funds.

If the goal is to conserve fuel and funds, interstates are your best option (assuming they are connecting your start and end point in a relatively direct route).
- A nice steady speed (even if faster) will typically be more efficient than stop and go or slowing for lots of sharp curves. (Just look at MPG ratings...highway is almost always better than city)
- Also, that braking will result in more wear and tear vs smoothly humming along.
- Harder to define but non-interstate driving you are around 50 times more likely to get into a crash...which tends to be expensive.

As someone else mentioned, Google Maps has a setting to avoid highways but once you leave the highways, it's smart to look at the proposed route before heading out in the morning. Generally if you stick to "US" or State Routes, you will be OK (not always but most of the time). When you get down to county and/or local roads, it's much less reliable.

Another key issue is construction. There is a lot of time/money/effort put into limiting delays on interstates. You still get a fair amount of effort on major arterials but the further down the food chain you move, the more likely there is minimal effort put in. That may put you on very long and/or questionable detour routes. Google Maps will generally show you and/or avoid them. A paper map will show it as smooth sailing.

Another trick, is to jump into Street View and look around (particularly if it looks twisty turny or otherwise questionable).

Some of this varies based on the type of RV.
- With a truck camper, you can back out or turn around on some pretty marginal roads. So winging it is much more viable.
- A big diesel pusher flat towing or a 40ft 5er and if you get a couple miles down an inappropriate road...your options are far worse.

Honestly, don't get the obsession with avoiding the interstate system. We drive the roads that get us where we want to go. Sometimes that's interstates...sometimes it's not.

[RCMAN46]

Just yesterday I had an incident that supports why I use interstates when possible. I was traveling US 20 between Albany and Newport Oregon. I was going about 5 over the speed limit towing a 5 th wheel.
A pickup following me decided I was going too slow. He started to pass and when he was beside the trailer another car pulled out from a side road onto the highway in the same lane as the pickup.
Now someone has to do something. The car can only brake as no place to pull over as road is narrow with steep drop off and no shoulder.
I felt if I were to brake the pickup would not make it around me in time. Luckily the pickup decided to brake hard and wait for me to pass him before he came to the car.

[paulj]

Most US# highways were completed before the Interstates, with varying degrees of improvement since then. Some have been extended (e.g US12 in Washington), others upgraded to interstate standards. Some state highways are limited access as well. So you can't identify the nature of the highway simply by the numbering system.

US# number generally is even for EW, same as for Interstates, but with smallest numbers in the north. US2 is northern most. NS are odd, with US101 generally hugging the Pacific coast.

Some highways ceased to exist when Interstates were built. US10 is mentioned in histories of I90 in Washington State, and there are sections called "Old US10" in Montana. Now it mainly exists in MN and WI. All sections of US99 have the same state number. In much of California it's a limited access alternative to I5. Around Seattle it's a major arterial, with the new tunnel under downtown being its latest reroute.

US2 has a major gap around the Great Lakes. US20 crosses Oregon, Idaho, etc. I've also driven it in Indiana. US30 starts out in Oregon north of 20 (it's a scenic drive through the Columbia Gorge paralleling I84), but most of the time it is south of 20. It's the Lincoln Hwy in the east. US50 is famous as a 'lonely' crossing of Nevada, but in Utah it is I70, and one of just four cross state highways in Colorado.

There are a number through NS highways in the West. US97 starts at Weed, CA, and runs up the east side of the Cascades to Canada. US95 runs border to border, with alternates like 195 and 395. Part of 395 is now I580, a new Interstate south of Reno. US 93 and US89 are other major NS routes. Some of these continue with the same number into Canada.

Further east the number of alternatives of all categories increases. The Interstate number is only one criteria.

Many of these highways have a Wiki page. US52 is an unusual 'diagonal', running NW from SC to ND

[bukhrn]

Horsedoc wrote:
We still have an road atlas from 2000 and still use it a lot if Seri can't talk with a satellite. I guess I am spoiled to the interstatesunless I am in the 'relax and see the country' mode.

Us too, we are generally destination travelers, getting there is the first priority, then we'll relax.

[BB_TX]

Veebyes wrote:
Been doing it for years. Basically it is using the roads that were the primary highways before the interstate system was built.

There are many. Not just rt66. Rts 2,36,50,40,1,301 just to name a few.

Pretty much any US designated highway and some states such as Texas have very good state highways.

[Veebyes]

Been doing it for years. Basically it is using the roads that were the primary highways before the interstate system was built.

There are many. Not just rt66. Rts 2,36,50,40,1,301 just to name a few.

[johnhicks]

Garmin will display that if it doesn't know what kind of road it is, suitable for large vehicles or not, aside from paved or unpaved. Just today it showed me that for Mississippi SR-6, of all things. I just ignore it.

[garmp]

I'm curious about avoiding highways. Our Garmin RV890 is designed for RVs and many times we do get off the beaten path and it warns us showing a RV with a ?. But it still takes us that way. Would we have to endure this warning the entire trip being unsure of what's up ahead?
Guess we'll have to try it on our upcoming trip in territory we're familiar with.

[paulj]

I would distinguish between trip planning at home (or on the road with wifi and good size screen), and on the fly navigation with only a phone or GPS unit.

Google maps (and others) have just as much information as any paper maps - in fact more so. Precomputer I had to use Thomas Guides, topo maps, forest service, and county road maps to get similar levels of details. For Canada, the Backroads Mapbooks still rival the online detail.

Just last night I was sketching out a short camping trip around Puget Sound and Hood Canal. Neither DeLourme or Bench Mark gave the same sort of detail on Forest Service campgrounds that I could get from GM.

On the road, it can be hard to get the big picture from small-screen devices, especially while it's actively giving directions. For that a paper map can be a useful backup - if your human navigator can read it.

In familiar territory, I like to select a destination, and then deviate from the directions, and watch how the system recalculates things. That gives me a better idea of how the navigation system picks alternatives.

Speaking alternatives, it's easy to explore alternative routes on GM, at least when using a full browser. Just click on the suggested route line, and drag the point to some other intermediate road. That gives an idea of how the distance and time changes. Often distances change little, but times change a lot due to different speed assumptions. With GM I can also zoom in, check the topography, look at the actual road with streetview, and gradients (the bike route option provides this).

The size of your rig may also make a difference in how you plan. A big RV - 70ft with toad - limits how far you can deviate from the freeway, mainly other paved highways, whether they have federal or state labels. But a smaller van or suv (or bicycle) opens up all kinds of alternatives, especially in the mountains. Years ago when I moved from Chicago to Seattle in a pickup camper, I used freeways at both ends, but "snuck" across the SD/WY, WY/ID and ID/OR borders on backroads. The WY/ID legs was on the forest service road sandwiched between Grand Tetons and Yellowstone.

In the past I used to browse book stores - big box, used, and local (and BC Ferries) for guide books. I have various 'backroads' and 'byways' guide books, hiking guides, waterfall guides, etc. Now I do more of that browsing online, but still pull out the old books (even my 1987 Alaska Milepost) to get ideas.

[LMHS]

I have a Next Exit book, a Rand McNally trucker's atlas and a Rand McNally mid sized road atlas. I ripped the midsized atlas apart and it lives in sheet protectors in a 3 ring binder, just like the Next Exit does. I always have my route written down on paper.

I use Onlyinyourstate.com to find places to visit.


To plan a trip, I use websites, the Next Exit and the midsized atlas. Since I run US highways along with a few state and county roads, I use the trucker's atlas to make sure there isn't a problem with my route. Once I get my basic route marked out on the Mid sized atlas with wet erase markers (and why they are in sheet protectors), I double check my stops on Google satellite view to see where my best parking will be. GasBuddy.com is good for finding fuel stops. Although I default to Sam's Clubs and Murphy's for fuel, particularly if overnight parking (ONP) in a Sam's Club lot (most of the time, not always, those two have the cheapest prices). Unfortunately not all Sam's Clubs have diesel. I do unhook to get fuel as it's easier and I top off fuel either the night before or in the morning before heading out. Once my trip is finalized, I plug it into the CoPilot. Each day is a "trip". I have discovered that is easiest.

[pianotuna]

Hi all,

The Rand McNally maps are available at Walmart. Mine is about 22 years old. I guess it is time to update.