Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Driving conditions/directions assist

Heading out west to Arizona in December. From the southeast. Long drive but I’m up for it. I can take interstate 10 all the way but concerns about traffic through Houston and trying to plan my window around it. Looking at maps looks pretty congested during peak hours. Could go different route of course but I10 straight shot

Looks like driving interstate 20 just outside Dallas might be better. According to google 1 million more people in Houston if I saw that correctly 😮

Knowing what I know about Houston, I would bypass that city if at all possible.

If there's anything that can serve as a bypass around either DFW or Houston, I'd grab it. Or pass through at 4 AM.

I am from Atlanta. Terrible traffic, one reason I don't live there any more.
I drove the big rig for 8 years and drove through Houston over 500 times. Houston traffic is twice as bad as Atlanta.

Listen to Houston am 740, they have traffic updates all the time. If there is a jam downtown, you can take the Perimeter I 610.
If both roads are jammed, you can take the Sam Houston Beltway, Hwy 8. This is an outer perimeter. It is a toll road. I took it a dozen times in the big truck and they only hit me with charges once. A camera takes a pic of your license plate and mails you a ticket, I guess the cameras are often broken.

Houston traffic on I 10 at 1 am is a walk in the park. Eight lanes both ways and nobody on the road. If I could, I arranged my run to roll through Houston after midnight.
I made that run from Mobile to San Antonio on I 10 hundreds of times and that is a great road, the only bad place is Houston. You even get a pass at San Antonio, as I 10 just skirts the south side of town and traffic isn't too bad.

Look at the Waze app.

IIRC, it has real-time driving / traffic conditions

Thinking back on it, traffic pretty much dies down after 9 pm, even on the worst day, Friday. Just plan your run to go through Houston at 10pm and you should do OK. Still, listen to traffic radio.

^^^^^^ This!

Saves time and speeding tickets.

Check out the navigation app Waze.

We travel on either 10 or 20, and numerous state highways in between the two. I generally circumvent the major cities, like Houston or Dallas. If I'm going through, I like to go through very early in the morning or late evening. Truthfully, most of the problems we have had have been weather related. I have learned over the years; anytime I drive through Flagstaff, AZ., it is likely to snow. I'm usually towing a trailer, so it makes things a little more challenging.
One highway we often take is state highway 84. This will take us from Clovis, New Mexico, to Dothan, Alabama. From there, we drop down to I10, in Florida, and take that to 75, and so on.
When heading east, we usually drop straight down to New Mexico, to get out of the weather, then start east at Clovis. Returning west, we'll usually go on I10 into Louisiana, then go up to 20. Often, I'll pick a secondary route just to get off the slab. Anyway, we have made the trip across the country numerous times, starting in 1970, and it's always an adventure somewhere along the way. Last year, we fought snow in Montana as we started out and lost a tire on the trailer when I had the whole outfit sideways on I90. The rest of the trip east was OK. Heading back west though, we had to stop in a vacant lot in Lubbock, Tx. (it would take some serious talk to convince me that Lubbock is not the anus of Texas) and wait out a dust storm. Then we hit snow in Flagstaff, AZ. (what else is new) and had spend two days in Kingman, AZ. because the highways were closed. We sat in Pahrump, Nevada for a couple weeks (I like Pahrump, and have relatives there), and ran for home when the weather looked decent.
We might not travel this year, we'll have to see. GD