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I was recently offered a new job at Texas A&M University, and I will be making my way there from East Tennessee next week.

The first bit of my route is fairly clear, I-26 W to I-81 S to I-40 W to I-75 S to I-59 S to I-20 W. But once I'm in Shreveport or thereabouts, I'm not sure of the best way to cut to the southwest. The Goog suggests the following:



But I'm wondering if it might be better to cut further to the west, through Tyler and Palestine, for example.

In any case, what I want to avoid are speed traps, stoplights, and slow roads, in that order, and any ideas you might have on how to do so would be very helpful.

[sprjus4]

^ I can’t comment for much of the routing, but for the portion of Carthage and Nacogdoches, I’d personally recommending following US-59 via Tenaha as opposed to the SH-315 and US-259 “shortcut”  Google advises.

Following US-59 is only a couple more miles with around the same travel time, but is all four lanes minimum and 75 mph throughout (except through a couple small quick “pass through”  towns - no real slowdowns), as opposed to the “shortcut”  where most of SH-315 is only 2 lanes making passing more of a challenge if you were to encounter a slower vehicle.

From I-20 to Carthage, the first 7 miles are a slogging 55 mph on two lane US-79, then you enter Texas where once past Bethany, the speed limit increases to 65 mph. The next 8-9 miles used to be 4 lanes undivided, but was recently switched to a 3 lane configuration with an alternating passing lane. Then past De Berry, it’s all four lanes undivided to US-59.

[CtrlAltDel]

^ I can’t comment for much of the routing, but for the portion of Carthage and Nacogdoches, I’d personally recommending following US-59 via Tenaha as opposed to the SH-315 and US-259 “shortcut”  Google advises.

Following US-59 is only a couple more miles with around the same travel time, but is all four lanes minimum and 75 mph throughout (except through a couple small quick “pass through”  towns - no real slowdowns), as opposed to the “shortcut”  where most of SH-315 is only 2 lanes making passing more of a challenge if you were to encounter a slower vehicle.

From I-20 to Carthage, the first 7 miles are a slogging 55 mph on two lane US-79, then you enter Texas where once past Bethany, the speed limit increases to 65 mph. The next 8-9 miles used to be 4 lanes undivided, but was recently switched to a 3 lane configuration with an alternating passing lane. Then past De Berry, it’s all four lanes undivided to US-59.

Thanks for this. It's good to know the lay of the land before I get there, and since there's no direct Interstate route to the area, you can't assume anything.

[CtrlAltDel]

Well, after a whirlwind week or so, I am here at College Station. The route I ended up taking was US-59 to US-190 to TX-30, which was slightly longer than what's posted above, but it had more four-lane mileage.

The drive overall went pretty well, although there was quite a bit of traffic through Chattanooga. I ended up spending the night in Forest MS, a smidge past the halfway point, in the ABVI, which was okay but not as good as its reviews suggested. The next day, yesterday, I drove the rest, which was also uneventful, except for the random thunderstorms that would pop up from time to time. Driving through them was sometimes difficult, especially with respect to visibility, but they did keep the temperatures down.