At the end of this month, I'm leaving for a cross country drive to Los Angeles (I'm beginning in Philly/South Jersey). I'm curious to find out if anyone prefers I-70 west or I-81 south to I-40 west. 70 is probably boring until you hit Denver, but I'm worried that 40 would get too hot this time of year once I hit the southwest states.

Any feedback is appreciated!

I 40 is definitely going to be hotter and it's also very boring until you get to Albuguergue (and from there it will at least usually cool down at night). I 70 will be boring up to Denver, but of course that drive west of Denver on I 70 is beautiful.

I'd choose on what I'd like to see/do along the way, assuming you'll have time for some stops. I 81 will take you through the Smokey Mountains, outside of Amarillo is Palo Duro Canyon, then there's Santa Fe, several national parks in central AZ and the Grand Canyon.

Besides the drive west of Denver, I 70 (then I 15)will take you near several spectacular parks in southern UT, and also give you access to north rim of Grand Canyon.

I recently moved from Phila to Denver. After researching it and reading previous discussion on the forum, I decided to take the NE Ext to I-80. 80 is a better road, higher speed limits west of Chicago, and has more roadside amenities than 70. Regardless of which way you go, you're going to drive thru 15 hours of cornfields and little else, across the plains.

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2220

Its always nice to get off the interstate highways if you want to see anything except the lug nuts of all the big trucks. It will take you longer but the extra time spent going thru all the small town is well worth it. We just spent two months and 10K miles wondering around the countryside, little if any on the the I-highways.