Driving from Michigan to Las Vegas 2019 (Henderson: 2014, hotels, to live in)

kuri · 01-09-2019, 03:40 PM

Hello All,

My husband and I are planning to drive from Michigan (Novi, Mi Area) to Las Vegas, NV sometime in March. We will be moving from Michigan to Las Vegas with two small dogs. I am having some concerns regarding the multiple driving routes available to us and was wondering what is the best route to drive? We are driving separately -- the two cars we are driving are a 2016 VW Golf and 2014 Honda Civic.

Some of our concerns are:
- Bad snowy weather
- Some possible mountain areas that we may encounter giving our cars trouble (Altitude, snow, difficulty breathing, etc)

We are okay with a 4-day overnight stays, 5 day total drive timeframe.

We would love to have any feedback on the best routes to drive that is SAFE and reliable during March. (Some entertainment/scenic drives would be nice too

)

Some advice would be great. Thanks all!

-- I know that this has been asked before but I couldn't find an updated version. Last post I saw was back in 2009!

airics · 01-09-2019, 06:10 PM

Take the southern route. Driving through the Rocky’s wasn’t fun for us. Did Cleveland to Vegas 4 times. Going through Texas was the best way

08grad · 01-09-2019, 06:26 PM

Seconded. Drove here from Michigan. The mountains in Colorado are not fun.

Southern route is much better. Detroit -> St Louis -> Oklahoma City -> Albuquerque -> Vegas. Each segment is about 8 hours.

BWNLV · 01-09-2019, 07:08 PM

Go southern route. Used to live in Colorado and the month with the most snow is March. Follow 08grad route. It's a fun drive. Be safe and welcome to Las Vegas. Hope all your dreams come true!

kuri · 01-09-2019, 07:19 PM

Thanks all! When you say southern route, you mean I-40 route?

This is the general drive directions I'm getting from google maps:
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/novi...36.1699412!3e0

Camaro5 · 01-09-2019, 08:00 PM

We drove the southern route from Northern Illinois to Henderson in Oct 2017 with our Boston terrier. Drove 8 hours a day for 3 days and about 4 hours the last day. We stopped every couple of hours and the dog was fine. It wasn't very scenic until we hit New Mexico and Arizona but it was a fun trip.

Limiting the driving to 8 hours or so really made a difference and made the trip more enjoyable. We spent the night in Springfield MO, Amarillo, and Winslow AZ.

My advice would be to plan your route ahead of time, pre-book your rooms, and make sure the hotels allow pets. There is a website you can go to, Travelling With Pets (or something) that will tell you which hotels along the way will take pets.

LRWalker · 01-10-2019, 10:02 AM

Are you sure that you don't want to take just one car and ship the other. I would check the cost of shipping one car against the cost of gas. It would be a lot less worry about breakdowns if you were together. Shipping a car costs less than you would think.

Camaro5 · 01-10-2019, 10:29 AM

I shipped two cars here from Illinois. $1800 for both on an open carrier. We drove our SUV. It was worth it.

Ramboman55 · 01-10-2019, 10:34 AM

We drove here almost 4 yrs ago. We took one vehicle with our 2 avg size dogs. We had a 3 yr old Toyota Rav4. We were able to fold down the back seats so it was very smooth and comfortable for our dogs. Made a huge mistake.... we tried to drive straight through with no overnight stays. We needed to stop twice for about 3 hours each time to get some rest. Our one dog would NOT have done well at all in a hotel room, we would not have been able to sleep for sure. If I was more rested... we would have been fine. Anyhow, this was in May and we took the northern route going through the Denver area. No snow on roads or anything. Of course we stopped every 3 to 4 hours to let the dogs do their duties. The southern route is longer in miles for sure. We also shipped our other car out here and it cost $800. Not bad really. It was put on a big semi,so it was not driven. Car was fine when it arrived. Hope this helps! Good Luck!

yellowsnow · 01-10-2019, 01:09 PM

I drove through the Rockies from Minnesota to Las Vegas in 2 days. In a VW beetle with 2 big dogs. Wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I stopped for rest right outside of Grand Junction CO at a small motel. Took the dogs to a great dog park in Grand Junction to tire them out for the last leg of the trip.