Has anyone driven to Vegas lately? (Victorville, Glendora: 2013, condo, casinos)

[greggd]

Originally Posted by BRinSM

I had commented recently that weekend traffic into and out of LA seems to have decreased enormously as of late. Anyways, I'm considering a trip to Vegas this summer and debating whether to fly or drive. Driving is obviously cheaper, but I really, really hate sitting in traffic and having the 4.5 hour drive turn into a 7+ hour drive. If anyone has made a weekend trip recently to Vegas, please let me know how crowded the roads were?

I would fly. The drive is long and the slower drivers irritate me. Especially the ones that like to drive right next to each other. Any incident will cause a delay and rubber necking.

Cost of gas is a non-factor. $20.00 difference with recent increases in gas prices each way. You dump that into a slot machine in about 5 minutes.

[Dwimmerlaik]

If you are going for a typical weekend trip coming back on sunday, just make sure you leave Vegas before 11am and you should be good. After that, especially after noon, traffic can be hell, like 8-10 hours back to LA hell.

[BRinSM]

Flights are a minimum $160 each. So for my wife and I to fly its well over $300, with the cheapest flights leaving Long Beach. Driving would cost roughly $100 since we have a car that gets good gas mileage. I think our best bet is to just take a Friday off and drive up in the morning and head home Sunday morning by 11 as Dwimmerlaik mentioned.

[financedot]

We are heading there tonight for the weekend of the 4th. I will report back my expirience

[Sorcerer68]

People are going a lot slower, there are less cars and there are hardly any SUV's on the road and the ones that were seemed to be going much slower. The fastest vehicles, (you know, pushing the others out of the way) were 2 SUV's doing the flippy-tippy dance. I saw a LOT more compacts on the road, the number or Prius drivers has increased exponentially. Traffic in Vegas itself has decreased dramatically. Saturday night at Flamingo and Las Vegas Blvd (the strip) is usually a nightmare but we cruised across in one light. This was a month ago.

[financedot]

So here it goes -
To Vegas - we left on Thu July 3rd at 11:15 pm from Redondo and got to hotel on the strip at 3am. There was some traffic in the last 60 miles on CA side before we hit NV (I was going ~ 60mph)
From Vegas - we left on Sun July 6th at 01:45pm from the hotel and got to Redondo at 7:15. The traffic was very heavy on CA side (moving speed of 20 mph). After that there was one accident which slowed things down.

Strip traffic - parking lot from 6pm to 3am for the whole weekend.

Overall impressions - under 4hours to Vegas 5.5 back, to make the trip faster I should've left at 11 am as suggested earlier. Many SUV on the road, I saw no decrease. I did notice people drive slower - under 70mph in 70 mph zones... and for some reason they prefer to do it in the left lanes too. It costed me $55 in gas each way (driving newer car, not a prius), so for two people $110 roundtrip is still a good deal considering the "service" you have to go through at the airports)

The last words of advice
Leave at 11pm to get there
Leave at 11am or 11pm to get back

[BRinSM]

thanks thats very helpful!

[jdavid93225]

Originally Posted by John23

I read the bun boy in baker is gone. The place with the big thermometer. That place was well traveled.

The Bun Boy restaurant is now a Bob's Big Boy. The thermometer is still there. There is still a Bun Boy restaurant in Barstow if you want to stop there. It's on Rt. 66 (Main St.) towards the west end of town.

Originally Posted by financedot

So here it goes -
To Vegas - we left on Thu July 3rd at 11:15 pm from Redondo and got to hotel on the strip at 3am. There was some traffic in the last 60 miles on CA side before we hit NV (I was going ~ 60mph)
From Vegas - we left on Sun July 6th at 01:45pm from the hotel and got to Redondo at 7:15. The traffic was very heavy on CA side (moving speed of 20 mph). After that there was one accident which slowed things down.

I was coming home from places east, heading home from Las Vegas at about the same time yesterday. The traffic came to a stand still somewhere a little north of Jean, NV. I got off the freeway there, and took dirt roads into California (I was driving a 4x4 pickup), and was glad I did, since it looked like the freeway was very slow. At one point (Cima Rd.), we headed back toward the freeway, and it was still very slow, so we continued on dirt roads a little further. Since we were close to the freeway, we could see where the traffic started to move again, but could not see what was causing it to be so slow. We rejoined the freeway at the next onramp (Halloran Summit) and the traffic sailed smoothly from there.

Overall, for a holiday weekend, I didn't think the traffic was too bad, except for the part where we went around, which was likely because of the accident mentioned by financedot.

Our drive out took us through Las Vegas about a week before the 4th of July, and traffic was fairly light on a Thursday afternoon. We didn't have any trouble with traffic problems at that time.

[pcar773]

Just did the drive today. Took around five hours door to door. Tuesday. No traffic. I say drive. You can go by the Mojave preserve and drive around for a bit. Plus the landscape is absolutely amazing. Coming back you get a great view of LA smog. It'll turn you into a tree hugger. The smog is so thick you can't even see the mountains ten miles in front of you.

[pcar773]

PS, stop by the crazy greek. The place is uber kitsch. I love it!