13 nights to drive from San francisco to vegas

tingtong

dorsetjohn wrote: »

Perfect except I would do it in the opposite direction . The reason why driving the other way the coast is on your side of the road when driving pacific highway /big sur !

I would agree with that.

tingtong

wdyw wrote: »

Two things wrong with this route.
1/ OP doesn't want to go back to SF , wants to fly out of Vegas
2/ As someone else has already said, you don't want to do Hw 1 south to north if you can do it north to south.

It just doesn't make sense to fly back out of Vegas though, not if you want to do Yosemite, San Diego & Vegas. You would end up doubling back somewhere along the trip.

They were asking for suggestions, which is what I offered. I suggested that a 'loop' would make more sense, they do not have to stay in SF at the end, simply return to the airport. I would also agree that HW1 would be best North to South. However, the way I suggested would allow a certain amount of flexibility, so they could get the first 14-15 nights booked up in advance.

EDIT: There's another reason for going via Yosemite first, there's far less chance of the Tioga Pass being closed, as opposed to the end of October

WolfSong2000

I've done San Fran, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Yosemite and Las Vegas before on various trips...spent a month in San Diego and really have no wish to ever go back. Santa Barbara was gorgeous, but expensive and not all that much to do...San Francisco was attractive - I stayed in the Taylor Hotel - very basic, but had an awesome old pull-to elevator, which I thought was cool D. Plus it was literally blocks away from the much more expensive "posh" hotels.

Did Vegas on a separate trip...to be honest, I wasn't entirely sure I'd enjoy it (I flew out to see a band perform and catch up with some American friends), but I really, really did...I stayed first night at some random motel...can't remember the name but was over-priced. Next was the Hilton for 3 nights, which ended up costing me just £60 for all 3 nights...not sure how it happened, but I was happy! The Hilton usually have good deals on . Last few nights was in the "El Cortez" which was a few blocks from Fremont Street (which is definitely worth a visit at night for the light show!). Stay just on Fremont street, though - don't go wandering as the surrounding area isn't all that great. The El Cortez is the oldest hotel in Vegas...has no elevators, which was a pain but was nice to see that even Vegas had a little bit of history!

FluffyFiFi

We wanted to do a similar trip but as we are going end of March and early April there didn't seem much point in attempting Yosemite. Also, we found out that there might be a need for snow chains on the car. So we finally decided to do LA for 5 nights (we have two children with us and we are going to do MGM Studios, beaches and Knotts Berry Farm or Disney) we thought that we needed to stay in one place for awhile to get over the flight.

We are staying at Knotts Berry Park for the five nights at a cost of £34 a night for a room for the 4 of us. We booked it through the Virgin website and couldn't get it cheaper anywhere else which we were surprised at.

We then spend two nights at Cambria which is halfway between LA and SF and here we are staying at Cambria Pines Lodge, again this is booked through the Virgin Website and is costing £44 for one night and £49 for the second.

From here we are driving to Vegas and have booked two nights at The Stratosphere for £39 each night. This is booked direct with the hotel.

We then have one night at The Grand Canyon, we thought it would be best to stay over as it is a long drive from Vegas. We are staying at The Grand hotel and we found it cheaper to book through Virgin, it is costing £57.

We are then back in Vegas and have booked The Luxor for three nights at £34 per night and then have two nights at Mandalay Bay which is costing £52 each night.

From here we are driving to San Diego and have booked the California Suites hotel for our last five nights, this is costing us £38 a night and we booked this direct with the hotel.

The total cost for our hotels is £746 which includes £19 for a Travelodge the night before we fly and works out an average cost of £33.90 per night.

If the dollar weakens it will be even cheaper.