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

tingtong

pazza2000 wrote: »

We are doing a West Coast road trip in a few weeks time. Renting a car for 15days and if paying at least $9.99 for GPS direct from the rental agency, surely there would be a cheaper option than $150 that I could arrange from here in the UK before we go?

If you happen to have an iPhone, you can get a Co-Pilot USA app for a few quid - I've used it and it's pretty good to be honest. Or, if you have an Android phone, there must be a satnav app available for that.

Or as Vicki suggests, buy the maps (or satnav) here before you go. The beauty about having it in advance is you can try it out, get used to it and add your own points of interest for places you will be visiting.

You can sometimes pick up a TomTom 910 off Ebay for about £80 then just sell it on when you get back.

Vikki_74

travellerboy wrote: »

Thanks, I'll give it a pun. One of the restaurants is part of the hotel I've booked for an overnight stop.

Sounds like it might be worth a try as long as the place gets ok reviews on yelp.com etc.

I'm assuming you read the bit in my original post about discount codes? As we're still at the start of the month there's only a 50% off one at the moment but they should send out an 80% code within the next couple of weeks if you hang on.

Murphy_The_Cat

tingtong wrote: »

You can sometimes pick up a TomTom 910 off Ebay for about £80 then just sell it on when you get back.

I've got one of them and it is an absolute cracker - however, its quite an 'old' syste, its bulky and the maps may now be several years out of date ! But it does ahave USA, GB and europe mapping.

pazza2000

I dont have a GPS (built into the car) however buying one here beforehand sounds wise, loading it with US maps. The TomTom 910 is going for a bit more than £80 right now on ebay so ill rule that out.

It would be good if there was a UK based company you could hire one from for a few weeks and post it back to them. Seems a bit of hassle buying one in Walmart over there

Murphy_The_Cat

pazza2000 wrote: »

IThe TomTom 910 is going for a bit more than £80 right now on ebay so ill rule that out.

Amazon £80

travellerboy

Vikki_74 wrote: »

Sounds like it might be worth a try as long as the place gets ok reviews on yelp.com etc.
.

Tried to order a couple of vouchers but the payment page defaulted to zip code/US state for credit card address. Have e-mailed them to find out how to buy..........awaiting reply.

Vikki_74

travellerboy wrote: »

Tried to order a couple of vouchers but the payment page defaulted to zip code/US state for credit card address. Have e-mailed them to find out how to buy..........awaiting reply.

I've always just put in my card billing address then used a random US zipcode (89109 las vegas, 92802 anaheim are a couple of examples off the top of my head) and it's gone through fine. Pretty sure most people on the Vegas board have reported success doing the same thing...it doesn't seem to need to match exactly with the address/postcode registered to your card.

FYI the current 50% off promo code (which will reduce a voucher normally costing $10 to $5) is FORK, but unless you need to buy right away I would wait until you can get 80% off (so voucher costs $2) before you order.

Vikki_74

pazza2000 wrote: »

It would be good if there was a UK based company you could hire one from for a few weeks and post it back to them. Seems a bit of hassle buying one in Walmart over there

I just googled "hire usa gps" and came up with a few companies who do that, but did a quick quote with one and it came out at about £60 for a couple of weeks so not really much cheaper than just hiring it with the car.

You can order items from Walmart and have them delivered to your hotel I think if that would be easier? I don't know the full details, was just looking into it the other day as I want some cheapish US voltage hair straighteners, but I'm pretty sure they do free delivery if you only choose the slowest option. You'd have to check with your hotel if they'd agree to accept a package and whether there'd be any charge though.

travellerboy

Vikki_74 wrote: »

FYI the current 50% off promo code (which will reduce a voucher normally costing $10 to $5) is FORK, but unless you need to buy right away I would wait until you can get 80% off (so voucher costs $2) before you order.

Thanks again, just ordered $100 voucher, cost me $7.50. The promo code is MENU, the code you quoted is out of date.

Vikki_74

Yeah they just emailed me the new MENU one this morning, sorry. Hope you enjoy it anyway!