West Coast USA

Murphy_The_Cat

misa.blue wrote: »

Wow, great plans for amazing time!!
1 night San Luis Obispo

So far have only flights booked and looking for hotels and hire car now..

If you can be in San Luis Obispo on Thursday night you'll get a real treat.They close the main part of town down and have a huge Farmers Market. Lots of barbecue pits, street entertainers, farmers selling stuff, local traders, people politicking, childrens entertainers and lots of people socialising and having a great time.

bagby

northwest1965 wrote: »

Another question comes to mind.....how good are the sat navs that you get with th rental cars?

we bought a micro card for the US before going on holiday to fit into our Garmin sat nav - £40 - used it on holiday then sold the card on ebay for £44. I think the rental companies charged about 50 dollars to rent one - something to think about

northwest1965

OK, its me again:). I think we are 'about' there!

Manc to Vegas, arrive afternoon
2 nights Vegas
1 night Grand Canyon
1 night Vegas ( we thought this would break up the next bit)
1 night Death Valley
3 nights Yosemite
3 SF
2 Monterey

How's it looking now?

Vikki_74

northwest1965 wrote: »

OK, its me again:). I think we are 'about' there!

Manc to Vegas, arrive afternoon
2 nights Vegas
1 night Grand Canyon
1 night Vegas ( we thought this would break up the next bit)
1 night Death Valley
3 nights Yosemite
3 SF
2 Monterey

How's it looking now?

Totally different is how it's looking!!

Have you decided to fly into Las Vegas and out of San Francisco or will you be flying back home from somewhere else? If it's SF then based on the places you've chosen I'd go Yosemite - Monterey first then up the coast to SF, otherwise you'll be doubling back on yourself.

Not wanting to confuse things further now you've changed things around, but you do know you've now missed out what most consider to be the best bit of the California coast in terms of spectacular scenery (Big Sur etc, which is south of Monterey), as well as any beach areas, for which you'd really need to be further south? Fair enough if that's what you've decided you want to focus on, but don't want you to miss anything out by accident!

For a 2 week trip I think you have to decide to skip one out of Vegas/Grand Canyon, Yosemite and the coastal drive as there just isn't time to do all three in the time you have available whilst still doing everything justice. You've chosen the latter - I personally would skip Yosemite or Vegas rather than missing out on seeing the coast but that's just me. In 3 weeks we still had to miss out on Yosemite - part of the reason we chose that was due to visiting in late September when I believe the waterfalls tend to have dried up a lot and it's just not a great time to visit - gives us an excuse to go back again and see it again on another trip though! Not sure what it's like im October but this site looks quite helpful with pros and cons for each time of year - http://www.yosemitefun.com/yosemite_best_time_to_visit.htm.

It's all about what you want to see and do at the end of the day though - what you've suggested isn't a bad plan if they're the places you've looked into and decided are 'must visits' for you.

If you're still struggling to put a route together and want any help thinking up alternative routes, let me know what kind of things interest you / what places are absolute must sees and what kind of trip you want and I'd be happy to help - I love that area of the US and just want to help anyone else thinking of visiting to get the most out of their trip.

misa.blue

blindman wrote: »

Comments
To many one night stays..

Use Priceline for arrival hotel in LA and possibly 4 nights in SFO.

Do not book hotels for the rest of the trip as you should get some good deals on the road and this gives you great flexibility if plans change.

I know we have quite a few 1 night stays in hotels, it's on the way from LA to San Fran. We just want to make most of little time we have. And I'm just not willing to give up one day in San Fran for smaller place like Monterey..
Would love to have more time to spend there..

Vikki_74

misa.blue wrote: »

Wow, great plans for amazing time!! Nortwest, we are doing similar trip :j
We are leaving London Thur 21 April, arriving back 8th May (overnight flight on 7May). Utilizing 4 bank holidays in this period!:rotfl:
Our plan is:
2 nights LA - going to Universal Studios next day after arrival
2 nights San Diego
1 night Laguna or Long Beach
1 night Santa Barbara
1 night San Luis Obispo
1 night Monterey or Carmel
4 nights San Francisco
Internal flight to Las Vegas
4 nights Las Vegas, fly back to UK

We planned it so we don't spend more then 3 hours per day in car, obviously if we don't hit bad traffic..Will have hire car from LA and return in San Franscisco as people here advised me that you don't need car in SF:)

So far have only flights booked and looking for hotels and hire car now..

I wouldn't waste a night staying in Laguna Beach or Long Beach - Google Maps times the journey from San Diego to Santa Barbara at only 3h 45m as long as you don't hit traffic, which I know is slighly more than you wanted to do in a day but certainly not impossible at just over 200 miles, and you could definately make better use of the night elsewhere. Either an extra day in San Diego (I could spend a week there no problems!) or tagged on to your time in Monterey to give you a bit more time at that end and avoid another one night stay.

There's really not a lot to see and do in Long Beach, and whilst the beaches along that stretch south of LA (Laguna, Huntington etc) are nice, I wouldn't go out of my way to spend a night there - a couple of hours at the beach to break up your journey from San Diego would make a nice stop though.

Otherwise, I really like the sound of your trip :T - makes me want to go and do it all again!

For a couple of MSE hotel suggestions, I'd highly recommend the Best Western De Anza Inn in Monterey (we only paid about $100/night there over a weekend, cheap for Monterey which gets pretty pricey, including breakfast and parking) and the SeaCrest Resort in Pismo Beach, a little bit south of San Luis Obispo (funky little place, newly remodelled, on a cliff overlooking the ocean with access down to the beach, lovely breakfast on their outdoor terrace, about $120/night, again over a weekend when other similar places were twice that price). For San Francisco, which again can get expensive, definately consider Hotwire or Priceline as I think has already been suggested, and for Las Vegas sign up for emails at smartervegas.com which has loads of great hotel offers, or just keep an eye on the MSE Las Vegas thread - we paid $55/night for a suite at the MGM through a deal someone had posted on there.

Vikki_74

Just as an aside to all this, it seems that people come on here posting about variations of this type of trip around the west coast all the time and there are loads of different threads which eventually peter out but still contain a lot of useful info - fair enought it's all there but it can be a pain to search for and a lot of the threads are old so the tendancy is for people to still go and start a new one for their particular trip.

I don't know who sets up these things, but as it seems to be a popular topic would it not be possible to have a 'sticky' like there is for Las Vegas, New York, Orlando etc where everything could be kept together? I'd be happy to help set something up but don't know how to go about it - anyone have any ideas?

northwest1965

Vikki_74 wrote: »

Just as an aside to all this, it seems that people come on here posting about variations of this type of trip around the west coast all the time and there are loads of different threads which eventually peter out but still contain a lot of useful info - fair enought it's all there but it can be a pain to search for and a lot of the threads are old so the tendancy is for people to still go and start a new one for their particular trip.

I don't know who sets up these things, but as it seems to be a popular topic would it not be possible to have a 'sticky' like there is for Las Vegas, New York, Orlando etc where everything could be kept together? I'd be happy to help set something up but don't know how to go about it - anyone have any ideas?

I agree Vicky. Some of the posts can be quite old and it can takes a long time to search for them.

northwest1965

Vikki_74 wrote: »

Totally different is how it's looking!!

.

Can you feel my head banging against the wall?:rotfl:(yours too by the time I do this trip)

We had decided to fly to Vegas and home from SF.

Our thinking was to leave the bottom end of the California coastline for next time when we do San Diego.
From Yosemite I think we'll take your advice and go to Monterey (we can do Carmel/Big Sur from there if we wantto?)

For us the musts are Vegas/Yosemite/SF. We're not people that like to lie on a beach more than 20mins. Having said that we are equally at home in the city/country/coast. Can you see why its so difficult.
Thanks for your help (and everyone elses too:))

Kered

I actually think you have planned too much, you should stick to maybe two or three definites and leave the reast to chance.
I have been to California 3 times and will probably need to go twice as much again to see the bits/things/places that I have missed.

Best plan of action is to pick a start and finish point and maybe somewhere for the middle weekend then just 'wing' the rest of it, dont even book hotels except perhaps in Yosemete as there are so may bargains to be had with coupons and cash offers, I have had better stays in $30/night edge of town places than in $120/night town centre bookings.
You will also 'find' places on the maps and via signs and hotel leaflets that just done pop up on travel site searches and nothing is worse than booking 2 nights somewhere then getting bored or dilsiking the area at lunch-time on the first day.