Southwest USA & The West Coast (California, Arizona etc) - General Thread

Hanging around on the travel forum for the last 12-18 months both before and after a fantastic trip to California and Las Vegas last September, I've noticed that many threads get started about people's individual trips to this part of the world then forgotten about after a few days or weeks. There are a lot of extremely helpful and knowledgeable people on this forum who provide some great advice, but much of this seems to get lost over time, only for the same subjects and questions to come up again a few weeks later.

It is of course possible to simply search the forum, but I for one am always a bit reluctant to just ressurect an old post from a year ago or so, plus I appreciate that many people want to ask for advice on their specific itinerary and want to know that this is as up to date as possible.

To try and help everyone out I thought it would be useful if we could try and keep all posts on the subject of California, Arizona and the Southwest USA generally in one place, providing one place for prospective travellers to look for previous information / post their questions and for anyone who has done a similar trip to give advice / post trip reports etc. It works great for the established 'stickies' for Las Vegas, New York and Orlando so hopefully will prove helpful for this part of the USA too.

Just as an aside to this, I am in no means professing to be an expert in such matters - I have been to the US generally many times, but to the west coast only twice before with another trip planned for this year. I am as likely to ask for help on here as I am to give it and this isn't intended to be "my" guide to the area, merely a place where all information on the subject can be easily reached from one place.

To start then, the following is a list of links to all previous threads I could find on the subject - some of these are a little old now, but much of the information and advice provide is still as valid as ever:

Trip Reports

Perfectspace (August 2011)
Trip report

uncovered (June 2011)
Trip report

misa.blue (May 2011)
LA
LA/San Diego
Sea World
Laguna Beach
Santa Barbara
Carmel & Pismo Beach

mich_city (July 2009)
Part 1
Part 2

blindman (June 2009)
Trip report

jackieblack (April 2009)
Week 1
Week 2

Murphy_The_Cat (May 2008)
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

General Road Trip Ideas / Advice

Our California Fly Drive
California Trip Ideas Please
California Road Trip!
Should We Drive?
LA or Las Vegas for Longer?
USA Experts - Check my Holiday Plan is OK
Family Holiday - LA/San Diego Road Trip
San Francisco - Yosemite - Death Valley - Las Vegas
West Coast USA
West Coast USA
California - Flight Prices & Road Trip Plan!
USA - Golden Triangle
West Coast Road Trip
Budget California Holidays
Multi Centre - LV-SF-LA
Where to Go After Las Vegas to Chill?
Spending Money for Roadtrip SF-LA-LV
Touring Holiday to Nevada, California & Arizona
California - Second Time Around
California Trip Ideas Please
California Road Trip (with kids)
Honeymoon US Road Trip - Help Me Plan
California Family Road Trip
American Road Trip - Help!
Driving an RV in the USA
Hiring Private Motorhome
13 Nights to Drive from San Francisco to Las Vegas
California Coast and LA
West Coast Road Trip - Who Else Has Done It?
Calfornia/Arizona Flydrive With Young Child
LA/California on a Budget - Have You Been Because I Need Help!
LA, San Fran & Vegas + Poss NY Stopover - 10 Day Trip
San Francisco to LA - Where to Stay?
Advice on Travelling Around California
California Help - Going on Honeymoon in 11 Days!!
Road Trip - San Francisco to Vegas
California
4 Days in LA and 3 in Vegas - Any Deals?
California 10-14 Day Escorted Tour Sept 2010
California Fly Drive Advice
USA West Coast Road Trip this March
American Fly-Drive Need Advice
California Holiday August 2010

Specific Cities / Places to Visit:

Travelling Around LA
Los Angeles Hotels - Best Place to Book?
San Diego
Disney - Anaheim - Where to Stay?
San Francisco - Advice Please
Reno & Lake Tahoe
San Francisco Hotel Room For 3 Nights
Needing a Hotel for LA and San Diego
Yosemite National Park Accomodation
LA - Any Must Dos / Must Avoids??
Yosemite in April
Los Angeles with Teenagers
Holiday in LA - Car Hire or Taxis etc?
Good Sites for Vegas and LA Combined?
Las Vegas to Los Angeles - Where to Stop?
Six Flags Magic Mountain vs Universal Studios LA
Camping at Yosemite

NOTE: For anything Las Vegas related, there is an established 'sticky' packed full of useful information here:
Las Vegas Guide and MSE Thread 2011

Flights & Car Hire

UK to Western USA - Looking for Flights Help
Has Anyone Flown KLM or Airfrance to San Francisco
Car Hire from LAX
Dollar Car Rental - USA
Car Hire Vegas - San Francisco
Car Hire US with Ebookers?
Car Rental - LAX
Car Hire in California
Hertz Car Hire in California
California Car Hire - October 2010
Car Hire for Las Vegas to Santa Barbara Trip
22 Year Old Car Hire in California
Car Rental and Inland Flights USA
Hiring a Car in California
USA Car Hire Costs
Alamo Car Hire at LAX
One Way Car Hire - Seattle to San Diego

Useful Websites Outside of this Forum

These are just a few other sites I have found useful in the past when planning trips to the West Coast and elsewhere in the US - I'm sure there are many others, will post more if and when they come to mind!

Trip Advisor Road Trips Forum
Full of many extremely helpful people who have done this type of road trip in the past and are always willing to share their knowledge, suggest itineraries etc to newbies.

There are of course all the individual city/state specific forums there too, but I figure most people know about and can easily find them already.

Road Trip America
The site and forum is generally very useful, but I also particularly like their Map Wizard (first posted on here by someone else a while ago - Murphy the Cat?) which is fantastic for plotting routes and seeing what other sights / places of interest there might be along the way

Roadside America
Billed as a "guide to uniquely odd tourist attractions" and does what it says on the tin - lots of fun!!

usatourist.com

visitcalifornia.com

Money Saving Sites

Travelzoo

Hotel and Entertainment deals for most major cities in the US:

San Francisco & Northern California - Hotels
San Francisco & Northern California - Entertainment

Los Angeles & Southern California - Hotels
Los Angeles & Southern California - Entertainment

Texas & The Southwest - Hotels
General USA - Entertainment

They also have "local deals" on loads of things to do in various places along the west coast:

California Central Coast
Los Angeles area
Orange County
Sacramento
San Diego
San Francisco Bay area

Groupon

Well worth signing up to their daily deals for anywhere you might be visiting on your trip - just select the relevant city from the drop down list at the top of the page and input your email address.

Currently covers Phoenix & Tucson in Arizona and a whole list of cities in California including LA, Napa/Sonoma, Orange County, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz & Monterey. Also Salt Lake City, Utah and Colorado Springs / Denver in Colorado for anyone going a little further afield on their trip.

restaurant.com

Offers a great way to save some money on food, buying gift certiificates for any of the restaurants listed which give a certain amount off your total bill. Standard prices are often $10 for a voucher worth $25 off a $35 spend, but discount codes are frequently available (sign up to their emails for details, or just search online) which offer up to 80% off this price, making the cost of the $25 off $35 voucher as little as $2.

Not all restaurants listed are worth a visit, but it's worth having a look at what's available and cross-referencing with a review site like Yelp to see what's decent. We used a number of these on our trip last year and were generally very pleased with the quality and value offered - see my post here for more details.

Goldstar

Features a ton of different things to do in various cities, from bus tours and boat trips to pub crawls and theatre shows, all at discounted prices. They often only have selected dates available at a time, but for the longer running offers you can sign up to be told about updates when more dates are put on sale. Covers San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Jose and Orange County within California, as well as Las Vegas.

The AA

Various businesses in the US, including a lot of the major hotel chains, will offer a discount for AAA members (the American version of the AA) - hotels are often around 10% off the normal 'best available' rate. These discounts are also available to AA members so if you are one, remember to check for AAA rates when booking and take your card with you!

mousesavers.com

A great place to look for offers on tickets, tour packages and deals on nearby hotels if you plan on visiting any of the theme parks etc around LA and San Diego (Disneyland, Universal Studios, Sea World, Knotts Berry Farm, Six Flags Magic Mountain, Legoland or the San Diego Zoo / Wild Animal Park for example) but also lists various offers and discount codes available on car hire etc. There is some good advice on there too so well worth a look.

Craigslist
For buying second hand anything you may need during your trip, or selling on anything you have bought when you're done with it - bikes, camping equipment etc (thanks richiehp for the recommendation).

If anyone else has links to other interesting past topics from this forum, or to other sites / sources of information, please feel free to post. Any trip reports which aren't included in the above threads would also be useful in gathering as much information together in one place as possible.

Alternatively, if anyone is planning a trip and has any questions, if you could try posting them here first so all the responses are in one place that would be great.

Happy planning everyone!
Vikki