Posting this info from our experience today in hopes it helps others decide on which route to take. We are heading South on I-5 from Washington to go to Mesa Arizona. We had heard that I-5 to Bakersfield was terrible because of poor road conditions and trucks. I had googled and tried to research but there wasn't really any recent info. Last year we cut over to 99 at Sacramento to go to Bakersfield. We found it to be lots of traffic, narrow lanes, and pretty bad road conditions. This year we decided to take I-5 all the way to Bakersfield. Hands down we thought this to be a far more relaxing route since lanes seemed wider and missed a lot of the metropolitan traffic that was on 99. That being said there is predominantly semi-truck traffic on I-5 from Sacramento to Bakersfield but my husband has no problem passing them. There are lots of trucks on 99 too but lanes are much narrower. Love to hear if others have traveled southbound to Arizona and have stayed on I-5 south of Bakersfield or if it is better to cut over at Bakersfield and eventually get to I-10 via 58 to Mohave then to San Bernardino.
Welcome to the forum. We have traveled numerous times over the years from Sac to Bfield and on to San Diego or east to Arizona and have use both 99 and 5. Sadly so many highways in Calif. are in sad shape due to our tax dollars being spent elsewhere, but we mostly used 99 to Bfield. Plus if you take 99 you reach the Eastern side of Bfield and avoid having to cut across the city area to head East. From 99 we take Hwy 58 East over the Tahachapi Pass and then 395 south at Kramers Corners where we hook up with I-15 south to San Diego. Most of our Arizona time was spent in the Tucson area so we take I-8 East out of San Diego. Going to Phoenix we take I-10 East at San Bernardino. Hope this is of help, if you need any suggestions on where to take a nightly stopover let me know as we've stayed in many RV parks on these routes, several that are really nice. Safe travels and be sure to post reviews of where you do stay on the Home page of this site............. BankShot........(aka Terry)
