Back in May we took a multi-week long trip to the southwestern part of the United States. We’ve done similar trips in the past as we love the feeling of the open road, a van to camp in, and seeing a landscape that is vastly different than what we get here in Minnesota. We both prefer driving over flying for a multitude of reasons, but one of them is that we get to see and experience the landscape of our travels instead of just passing over it.

Since we’ve gained experience with these long driving trips we’ve started to dial in our preferences for routes and styles of roads, and one thing is clear… interstates are usually boring. When you need to get from point A to point B and you need to get there quickly the interstate is a great tool. It’s built for loads of traffic, the speeds are high, and they often connect the two points you’re trying to get between. Sometimes they’re also the only way to get through certain areas that makes sense (such as Colorado east to west or Utah north to south). But, sometimes you’ve got options, and that’s where we exercise our preference for the State highway.

State highways take on many different flavors, from two lane roads through the countryside, to multi-lane speedways with exit and entrance ramps. But in general they tend to be slower, less clogged with semi-truck traffic, and can sometimes provide useful paths through an area on the diagonal. This was particularly true as we came back through southeastern Colorado and Kansas. Unless we wanted to go a long way out of our way, the best path across, to get to our destination in southern Nebraska, was various State highways that allowed us to cut northwest at an angle and provided us with a very direct path to where we wanted to go.

State highways also have advantages beyond being able to create a more direct path. They’re usually slower speed than the interstates which has the distinct benefit of giving you better gas mileage. As we left for our trip in May the Iran conflict was ramping up and we had a real fear of how bad gas prices were going to end up getting. Sticking to slower speed roads that max out around 65mph helped us achieve much better MPG on the trip. Our vehicle’s computer told us that over the 4000 miles we drove we averages 31mpg. That’s not too shabby for a minivan.

The slower speeds and smaller roads also mean that there’s a lot less semi traffic. Driving near big semis is annoying and stressful. Especially on roads like I-40 and I-80 where the truck traffic saturates almost every lane. I fully understand how trucks can be a great tool for transporting goods, but that doesn’t mean I need to enjoy driving near them.

Finally, the other advantage for us in traveling State highways is getting to see small towns across the country. Having to occasionally slow down to go through a main street of a small town is a feature, not a bug, of road trip travel. These are places that people have chosen to call home, and they’re often very proud of their small, less densely populated, downtowns. Small bars and taverns provide a color to the area that you’d never experience if you’re just passing by exit after exit on an interstate, hitting whatever chain restaurant that happened to set up shop next to the truck stop.

Interstates have their place, and we used our fair share of them on this trip. But when we were given a choice we often select that slower more scenic path, and soak in as much of the world around us as we can.