I am planning to drive from Vail, CO to Naples in a few weeks; looking for suggestions on efficiency; scenary and places to stay along the way that are clean, safe, and reasonable.

leaving next week: Please help!

Do you have a route planned out yet? Or do you need advice on that as well?

How many days are you planning this drive for? Any particular stuff you want to see?

Accomodations is not a problem at this time of the year. You'll find many many motels - clean and safe - with room anywhere you go.

I've done it several times. You fail to say how long you want to take; are you looking for the quickest way, or do you want to take the better part of a week or more and make more stops?

My last trip was actually from (slight adjustment) but here's what we did:
First day: 202 miles to Denver for the night (obviously the drive is less from Vail and you could skip Denver).

Day two: drove 612 miles from Denver to Kansas City. Arrived late afternoon, spent the night in KC.

Day three: spent the morning in Country Club Plaza area of KC (where we had stayed, had a great lunch at Ponak's Mexican, and left about 2:30 in the afternoon. Drove to East St. Louis, 263 miles. Spent the night there.

Day four: Drove 655 miles. Stopped for lunch in Nashville. Spent the night at Perry, Georgia.

Day five: drove 514 miles, stopping for lunch in Wildwood, Florida and arriving in Naples late afternoon.

I think about the most you'd want to press on to do if in a hurry is to spend your first night near Kansas City, second night near Chattanooga or Atlanta, and then on into Naples the third day, but it is a lot of driving! Of course, all interstate.

Motels are abundant all the way, particularly just outside the major cities. It's a toss up where you want to stay -- Hamptons, Holiday Inn Express, Fairfield Inns, etc. I suggest you get the AAA tour books for each state and you have a good record of what's available at each exit.

Duh, what I meant to say was the last trip was from Aspen, not Vail.

Patrick gave you the shortest route, and it's all Interstate.

However, if I'm not in the biggest hurry, I may also consider this alternate, which is about 80 miles longer, but will see fewer large cities:

From Limon, CO, take US287 all the way down to Ft. Worth, TX. I-20 to Shreveport, LA. I-49 to Lafayette. Then I-10 to Florida.

We drove from Denver to St. Pete Beach about this time of year a couple of years ago, here was our route. We went from Denver to Tulsa, stopping by in eastern Kansas to visit my grandparents' gravesites. I recall Tulsa as one giant construction project/shopping center. Arrived too late to really see or do anything.

From Tulsa we made our way to Hattiesburg, MS, stopping in Vicksburg along the way. If you are interested in Civil War history, I would recommend it. I believe they open the historic antebellum mansions for tours in the late springtime, you may want to check if you are interested. Hattiesburg is a nice college town, one that still hasn't quite gotten over Brett Favre, lol.

We visited friends in Hattiesburg, then made it to St. Pete the next evening. I recall the drive through the Florida panhandle as interminably LONG and boring. On the return trip we went up through Georgia instead, and this was much more interesting and varied, for me anyway.

It's a long drive, but I would say that I really enjoyed seeing all the sprintime blooming dogwood and lilac throughout the south as we drove, and I enjoyed visting historical sites.

P.S. Just checked and the 2004 Vicksburg Spring Pilgrimage just got under way. Fabulous opportunity to visit all the historic riverfront homes, wish we had been there during that time but our trip was in early March.

thanks everyone. I plan on not taking more than 4 days. I heard someone say I40 or something like that; maybe thru Sante Fe? If anyone has other suggestions that would be awesome. wish me luck; iintervieiwng today for a job in Naples. my Dad is in Marco 6 mos out of the year; so if I move back to Boston or FL I still have somte time with Family.

Good luck with the interview.
You can go south from Denver to Sante Fe on I-25 then across I-40, but best to continue down I-25 to I-10 near El Paso then on across that way to Florida and south on I-75. It's longer, but nicer stopping points. In four days, it will be all driving however, so I don't really see the advantage of the better stops -- just more frustrating not to have the time to really stop and enjoy them.

Do not go down I-25 to Santa Fe. That's going to add many hours to your drive, and you're just going to get even more bored with I-40 across NM, TX and OK. Take the route Patrick has for you. It's about 2200 miles total, so expect to drive about 550 miles or about 8.5 hours (not including stops) per day. You should plan to drive more miles in the first two days, as traffic is light out west, and speed limit is higher. From Nashville onwards, expect lots of traffic and lots of big trucks on the road.