Frankly, your typical front-wheel-drive sedan is as good for most highway conditions as a 4WD SUV. Ice and/or a thin layer of packed snow, not deep snow where you need 4WD, is the much more likely problem.

If you have an absolute schedule to meet, then a Southern route has some appeal. If you can hole-up somewhere for a day until the roads are cleared, then you should have no trouble with your prefered route. Just pay attention to the weather report, plan on short driving days and look for a place to stay immediately if the weather turns bad — it’s really unlikely to get better before it gets worse. The freak storms where travelers are stranded for days are rare — roads are almost always back to "normal winter driving" within 24 hours.

If your’e really worried, then get some good winter tires mounted on stock steel (black) wheels and store them in your trunk. You can always swap out tires if you encounter snow and ice. However, I think I’d take my chances without them if I were sticking to Interstate highways. Front wheel drive with good snow and ice tires is much better than 4WD with all-season tires in these conditions.

I think you’ll probably be fine with the route you’ve chosen, but if you remain worried, or if it appears there are a lot of storms brewing, you can avoid the Rocky mountain passes by traveling through mid-New Mexico into Arizona and then southern California.

I would agree with Tom. Socal is def a nice place to go to since we have such nice weather. Its mid 70’s this week.