Driving to St. Louis and back!!! (hotel, safe, budget)

[infiri]

I need to drive to St. Louis and back, technically ballwin.

Can anybody tell me where should I stop? Where are the cheapest hotel? I don't want to over drive and get to an area where all of the motels are expensive. I drive to NYC a lot and I know north and South Carolina is where the cheap motels are.

So can anybody tell me where I should stop to sleep?

[Rabflmom]

Originally Posted by infiri

I need to drive to St. Louis and back, technically ballwin.

Can anybody tell me where should I stop? Where are the cheapest hotel? I don't want to over drive and get to an area where all of the motels are expensive. I drive to NYC a lot and I know north and South Carolina is where the cheap motels are.

So can anybody tell me where I should stop to sleep?

When we drive to Chicago, we usually stop North of Atlanta in Georgia. Have stayed right off 75 in Dalton, Ringold, and Tunnel Hill. I think we choose those because there is a Cracker Barrel in each location.

[Arcenal813]

Originally Posted by Rabflmom

When we drive to Chicago, we usually stop North of Atlanta in Georgia. Have stayed right off 75 in Dalton, Ringold, and Tunnel Hill. I think we choose those because there is a Cracker Barrel in each location.

Granted, driving to St Louis is only about 12 hours. One can probably one-shot it without needing to sleep... if you must stop, try between Atlanta and Nashville.

[Rabflmom]

Originally Posted by Arcenal352

Granted, driving to St Louis is only about 12 hours. One can probably one-shot it without needing to sleep... if you must stop, try between Atlanta and Nashville.

No it takes longer than that. It is a little over 1000 miles to Ballwin. Figure about 15-16 hours in good traffic. Sometimes though we have gotten bogged down with accidents and heavy traffic in Atlanta and spent a couple to 4 hours just getting around it during the day. Last time we drove my husband swore never again. We drove through on a Saturday morning that time The straight through route signs advised not to go that way, the west by- pass said delays from accidents, so we took the East like the traffic signs said to. What a mistake. We ended up waiting for 3 different accidents and it took us 4 hours to get North of the city.

If they are young and have more than 1 driver and don't mind night driving, you can drive even longer without spending the night somewhere, but from experience of doing the 1 shot drive to Chicago on a regular basis for years, you lose a day anyway because you are too tired to do anything. Driving the last 4 or 5 hours can become so tedious that one time we stopped to get gas, looked at each other and said where are we? And neither of us knew. We decided if we no longer knew where we were exactly, it was time to get a hotel. :-) funny thing was we were within 2 hours of my sisters, but it would have been unsafe for the kids and us to continue on.

[nfdsouza2001]

Depending on your budget, there are a lot of of options. I would stop around Nashville. If leaving early is an option consider leaving at around 4 am and be in St Louis by 5-6 pm.