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

Rebecca.

Hi

Hoping someone can help. I'm going for an 8 night trip to the West Coast in a couple of weeks - it's an organised tour starting in Los Angeles and travelling down to San Francisco. I'm trying to figure out how much spending money I need, but don't really know how much to budget for food. Can anyone give me any guidance? I know it's massively dependent on when/what I eat, but any help would be appreciated. The tour company I'm going with suggest about a $350 food budget - does this sound realistic?

Thanks

Murphy_The_Cat

Rebecca. wrote: »

Hi

The tour company I'm going with suggest about a $350 food budget - does this sound realistic?

Thanks

If you're going to be eating 99 cent mcdonalds food, yes. If you're fancying 2 decent meals a day (plus snack) less so. If you're going to be having wine with your meal each night, definitely not.

Or, if you're going to self cater in your room, $350 is a lot more than adequate.

Remember that for meals (except fast food places), a tip will be 'expected'.

northwest1965

ILOVEHOLIDAYS wrote: »

had to start a new thread as unsure how to add it without doing that but heres the link

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/62757131#Comment_62757131

Have you booked the accommodation. It does seem expensive. I know it is very late in the day, what sites are you using?

silvercar

Who is your hire car with? We hired with Hertz and had the plate pass thing and enroute back into San Fran we drove over the Bay Bridge, just been stung for £30 for the tolls on my credit card! Would have been better to pay via cash - but i think the golden gate bridge is cashless - perhaps someone else could confirm this?

You can pay online the same day that you use the bridge, just need to enter the reg number of the car and your CC details. Only other "toll" we had to pay was when we entered yosemite.

silvercar

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

Crispy, if it helps at all. I booked in the Christamas seat sales.
Flying Man - SLC, topping at IAD and returning
Santa Barbara to Man (changing at LAX & FRA) with United
for £708 each with very family friendly flight times (I could have reduced it by £5.00 flying out at 6.00 in the morning)
I never saw any prices lower than that for the trip -- but they did fluctuate quite widely. It certainly wasn't a consistent increase in fares.
IIRC, only Virgin fly to LV from Manchester and no airline can get you close to the American West Coast without a connection from Manchester.
My suggestion would be to dismiss the idea of the Virgin flight and research a full service airline that is part of a global partnership i.e Star Alliance. Don't get to hung up on the price, as convenient flight times/connection have a value all of their own :beer:

We flew on Avios, but couldn't find direct flights so flew to Houston and then took a flight to LAX with United. Different group - but the price made it better. We allowed 5 hours at Houston to cover any delay and then paid £75 pp to change to earlier flight (actually got a bit of an upgrade with that charge too). Added to journey time, but we cleared US customs at Houston so saved a bit of time there.

(We could have got the internal flight cheaper with spirit airline but they had terrible reports and no ability to change flight or assistance if delayed.)

blindman

ILOVEHOLIDAYS wrote: »

All I can say is WOW!!! so excited

maybe for another thread but can I ask what make and model your camera is we are just looking to buy the canon eos 60d. but your pictures are fantastic

Panasonic DMC-FZ28

18 x Zoom 10 MG Pixel. Anti shake software

Updated model is the FZ35

ILOVEHOLIDAYS

blindman wrote: »

Panasonic DMC-FZ28

18 x Zoom 10 MG Pixel. Anti shake software

Updated model is the FZ35

Thanks...will definatley look at this!!

ILOVEHOLIDAYS

northwest1965 wrote: »

Have you booked the accommodation. It does seem expensive. I know it is very late in the day, what sites are you using?

did all the pricing from T****go but doubled checked all the reviews to make sure the hotels were ok. I am looking to book them this weekend so will shop around a bit more. apart from the 1 night stop which i dont mind paying for i need to get the vegas accomadation down. Is there any you can suggest are better?

joaniemerc

Ignore. SilverCar has answered my query about paying on line:T

jackieblack

Rebecca. wrote: »

Hi

Hoping someone can help. I'm going for an 8 night trip to the West Coast in a couple of weeks - it's an organised tour starting in Los Angeles and travelling down to San Francisco. I'm trying to figure out how much spending money I need, but don't really know how much to budget for food. Can anyone give me any guidance? I know it's massively dependent on when/what I eat, but any help would be appreciated. The tour company I'm going with suggest about a $350 food budget - does this sound realistic?

Thanks

Assuming that 8 nights means 9 days, then $350 works out roughly $38 a day. If that's just for you then I'd say it's do-able but it really depends on how much and what kind of food. If it's an organised tour will you have any choice where you eat or will you be taken to particular places to eat?

We travel as a family of 3 adults (DD is 17) and we budget $100 for the three of us. That's for breakfast (although depending on the hotel, more offer a free continental breakfast now than they used to), a snack (fruit bought from supermarket), bottled water (bought at supermarkets in multipacks) and a meal in the evening at some where like Denny's/IHOP/Applebees/Bob Evans/Cracker Barrel/Chilis/Golden Corral etc.
It's not fine dining, we're not massive eaters and don't drink alcohol - we rarely have dessert, for example, because we're always full up from the large portions we're generally served.

As Murphy says, if it's a table service meal a tip of 18-20% will be expected so you need to factor this in.

BTW, if you're starting in LA you'll be travelling up to San Fran