California road trip

blatisingh

Ok guys heres the story so far, me and a mate have now graduated and we are celebrating by doing this road trip
. Thats where your help comes into it. so far have deiced to go to lax and drive all the way up to vancouver stopping at san francisco , las vegas. What i need to know is where to go from peoples experience on here, and how to get cheap accomodation. in my last Nyc trip i used priceline and got some good hotels at around £40 a night, but this time we are hoping to go for around 1 month so we need something cheaper, any ideas guys? any help would be appreciated, especially on how to find a good cheap flight, itenary and accomodation. i dont ask for much do i[}:)]

Cheers

Rups

Nobjocki

Here's what you do.
Check out https://www.autodriveaway.com where you can drive other people's cars across the US for nothing.You can hop from city to city and pick up a cheap local hire car such as Rent-A-Wreck ( I kid you not ) for noodling around.
Take a copy of the USA Let's Go guide - the definitive guide for the classic road trip.
Personally after doing Vegas and the Grand Canyon I'd head south to New Orleans and Florida - then up to New York and into New England,Maine etc before crossing the border into Canada.
It is without doube the best holiday you will ever have.

Lifesaver

As soon as I've collected my car I stop off at the nearest Dennys and pick up a Traveller Coupon Book. It lists loads of discounted hotels and motels for the area.

Nobjocki

Then after I've been driving for a few hours it's time to hunker down.
A long-forgotten motel by a two-lane blacktop.
Muddy Waters on the radio.
Mary Lou checking us in.
Black-eyed peas for breakfast.
But a thirst to quench before that.
Mary Lou directs us to a small town about two miles away.
" It's not even on the map, " she says.
The bar was called Status Quo.... that's the last thing I remember of the evening.
But I do recall Mary Lou made mighty fine black-eyed peas for breakfast.

The point I'm making is don't book anything in advance.Just fly in and head off.You never know what might happen.

And I never did find out why a bar in the middle of nowhere was named after the best band to have ever donned denim.

:beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: hiccup.:beer: :beer:

Bob63

Without wishing to pee on your bonfire, if you have just graduated (and are therefore I assume around 21/22) you might want to check if you can actually rent a car in the USA at your age. That might kill the whole trip dead.

Otherwise it sounds like a fantastic trip and you should definitely do it. Some good advice has been posted already. To be honest my advice would be

1) Forget an itinerary other than an arrival place/date and a departure place/date. Total flexibility should be the order of the day. If you don't like somewhere then move on. If you like it then stay longer. Simple and effective.

2) Based on the above, don't book any accomodation other than your first night in LA. After that just drive and arrive. Look for cheap motel accomodation or pick a cheap chain (Motel 8 for example) that has a central booking number so you can book ahead on occasions when you need to.

3) Make sure that you don't have just one named driver for the car. Accident/illness/tiredness are all reasons why you might want someone else to drive. You don't ever want to be stranded.

Above all have fun!

Mike

NafUk

You can try camping. Campsites are great in California and most of the US.

Sequoia Park is a nice place to camp. If you are going in July/August you may want to book campsites, but if they are full there are usually a spaces avaialbe outside the parks.

LAX to Vegas then up the coast (I've done this exact route but only as afar as Whitby Island in Washington State) involves a bit of back tracking to Bakerville (I think).

I would stay flexible and try and stay in some out of the way locations, or a
least afew miles off the main roads.

As an alternative to driving there are a number of buses which load up with young people and go from say, LA to Vancouver. Try searching for them. I dropped some friends kids off for a ride on the Greeen Turtle bus.

Have fun.