Best Route Nashville To Tampa

[scarstenson]

We are traveling from Nashville to Tampa looking for best route and maybe a campground or two along the way.  Not in a hurry so a scenic route would be ok too.  Suggestions.  Not too crazy about going through Atlanta but not set against it either.

 

[ispjs]

To me I-65 south to Montgomery, then US Rt. 231 down to I-10 is the best route.  There are no steep grades going this way and you avoid Atlanta.  For us, usually going all the way to Cape Coral area, it adds about an hour to the entire trip.  

US Rt. 231 is about 99% four lane divided and almost all new pavement in the last 3 years.  You do go through several small towns but that is part of the reason we like going this way, it breaks up the trip by not being on interstates the whole trip.

[kaypsmith]

1 hour ago, ISPJS said:

To me I-65 south to Montgomery, then US Rt. 231 down to I-10 is the best route.  There are no steep grades going this way and you avoid Atlanta.  For us, usually going all the way to Cape Coral area, it adds about an hour to the entire trip.  

US Rt. 231 is about 99% four lane divided and almost all new pavement in the last 3 years.  You do go through several small towns but that is part of the reason we like going this way, it breaks up the trip by not being on interstates the whole trip.

This would be my choice route also. Just before Troy Alabama on hgy 231, there is a very nice CG called Deer Run, very nice CG, no reservations needed, and it is almost the halfway mark for your route. The CG is full service, very clean, and almost all sites are pullthrough.

[ispjs]

X2 on staying at Deer Run.  It has been a couple years since we visited them but they used to either give you a bag of fresh popcorn or a cup of coffee when you checked in.  Very nice folks.  Several years ago we booked there 2 nights.  The second night they were suppose to get a bad storm so we took off that morning.  The owners gave us a night's credit we could use the next time, which they honored a few months later.  How many CG's could you find that would do that?

[manholt]

I like to cut off I-10 just East of Tallahassee and go down hwy. 19/98 to Perry, FL.  That's the "old hwy." to Tampa, but now, I take it to the Ocala cut off in Chiefland, hwy. 27Alt., and then get on I-75S in Ocala.  

Where in Tampa are you going?

[kaypsmith]

Beautiful sites on hgy27, this is where a lot of the Kentucky Derby horse owners, winter their thoroughbreds, very expensive barns to stall them in, and most of the owners have their own training tracks there also.

[ispjs]

My GPS has encouraged me to cut off of I-10 a couple times onto Rt. 19 to cut across, just never have tried it.  May be worth trying this spring with heading north.

[manholt]

Joe S.

North or South, I prefer it.  You miss so much of the Ocala, Lake City and I-10/I-75 traffic.  Back in the 80's, we would take the coastal road from Panama City all the way down to Naples and 41 across to Homestead and out to Cujo key, where we spent the last week of December to March!  Stone Crab Claws, Snapper and Avocados the size of a mans head.