Driving to Vegas

We are picking up our hire car in LA to drive to Vegas. Just wondering if the drive is easy and how long does it take to drive there? Is there anything we should stop and see on our way? Is the road Route 66????

Driving to Vegas

It%26#39;s about 270 miles and is pretty easy providing you don%26#39;t do the drive on a Friday or Saturday when traffic can be terrible. Under normal conditions it should be 4-5 hours of driving time. Traffic can be a problem leaving LA depending upon the time of day and just where you%26#39;re leaving from.

There%26#39;s not a huge amount to see along I-15 other than some good bits of desert scenery. It%26#39;s not Rte 66 but you can leave the interstate at Barstow and drive along a section of Historic Rte 66. It%26#39;s not particularly exciting or worth going out of your way to see. The really interesting bits of Rte 66 are in Arizona and New Mexico.

You may want to stop for lunch at Baker and check out the world%26#39;s tallest thermometer (you can%26#39;t miss it!). There%26#39;s a couple of interesting diners there, Peggy Sue%26#39;s (50s retro) and Mad Greek.

Driving to Vegas

Thanks for that, good to know distance as one website I looked at said 12hours!! I have been told by a friend about Peggy Sues so will definately have a look. We will be driving on a Sunday and leaving morning sometime.

Suggest U get a map and study closely, your planned route.

Route 66 is history.

Memorize your INTERSTATE hwy sign numbers.

Hey there SunshineGirl... I%26#39;m going to be making the same drive myself in a few weeks. I%26#39;ve asked some questions on the forum... have gotten good advice! Good luck on your travels as well.

Peggy Sues is not in Baker unless they have recently built a new one. It is in Yermo and is slightly interesting. Diner food was good. Not a lot to see mostly desert drive but I like that. It is an easy drive just don%26#39;t go on a Friday or Saturday morning to avoid traffic.

Lady travel, thanks for that I read some of your posts, always great tohear what people think especially since I am coming from Australia I want to make it a great trip.

SunshineGirl75

I drove from Vegas to San Diego a few weeks ago, and it was a nightmare. It was a Friday afternoon, Labor Day weekend, and it was a long, boring, stressful drive. You either go 75+ or you get run over. There is nothing of interest on that highway, except desert and mountains off in the distance. For a Texan the scenery was nice, but I didn%26#39;t have much time to look at it. I was too busy trying to keep up with the traffic, lol.

There were bottlenecks also as I got close to the LA, San Diego split where it was stop and go for at least an hour.

You may have better luck going the opposite direction but it took me 6 1/2 hours, even though my trucker brother told me it was a 4 hr drive. Maybe for a trucker, or a Nascar driver.

Good luck and be safe.

Thanks for that NYgirlinTX, I am prepared for a slow trip after reading the posts on here.

We did the drive in Aug, didnt take too long probably about 5 hours as someone said. There is also an outlet mall on the way in so if you like to shop and have time you could check that out (If you want info on this I could find out since I%26#39;ve forgot what it is called lol)

We did route 66 when we drove to the Grand Canyon from Vegas (and back) another option if you were thinking of doing the canyon, otherwise I guess you%26#39;ll have to look at a map and try to fit in 66 by making a longer/different route to Vegas.

Driving L.A. to Vegas on a Sunday would normally be light trafic. Unless there is an accident, you should be able to keep the speed up to 75 mph the entire drive, once you get out of LA. Not counting stops for gas, bathrooms, snacks, meals, etc., it should take about 4 - 4.5 hours to crive from downtown L.A. to the Strip.

There will be a couple of short bottlenecks -- (1) where the 15 and 215 meet in Rancho Cucamonga, (2) going up the Cajon grade between Rancho Cucamonga and Hesperia, sometimes (3) while approaching Baker and on the climb after Baker, and sometimes (4) on the climb between Cima Road and Primm.

The main problem, other than accidents, is when a truck doing 60 mph is passing a truck going 55 mph, and the passing truck pulls into the fast lane, slowing everyone else down. But on Sunday, there are not a large number of trucks.

Touristy things along the drive -- only Calico Ghost Town. Route 66 is not worth driving (except I used to use it a lot as a bypass when construction near Barstow slowed down the interstate). Calico Ghost Town is worth a few hours, in my opinion. It is near Peggy Sue%26#39;s. And yes, Peggy Sue%26#39;s is in Yermo, not Barstow, but that is not an important distinction to most tourists driving through.

Fill up your gas tank at the Lenwood Road exit in Barstow (or at the Joshua Road exit in Hesperia or the Bear Valley exit in Apple Valley). You will be drivign along a very lonely desert road, and if you need gas between Barstow and Primm, you will pay a pretty hefty premium for it.