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

Vikki_74

:T

Wow that's a good price nowadays - get 'em booked quick!!

Starrystarrynight

realised wrote: »

Having been keeping an eye on flights on Kayak and flight prices in October have finally come down! £477 to LAX. Will be booking real soon

That's about what we paid for September flights in the BA sale ages ago. Snap 'em up! :-)

realised

We've decided to pay that little bit extra and fly direct. It's about £500 odd so not that bad.

Before I book i'm just trying to work out a rough plan. We're starting our trip in Phoenix and spending about 3-4 days there. Then I really want to go to the Gran Canyon as last time we didn't get a chance. I had a look at the Maswik Lodge which Vikki mentiond earlier in the thread but it's £167 for the night i'm looking for (14-15th oct - date flexible) I don't really want to pay more than £100 anyone have any other recommendations?

Then I'm not sure whether to spend a few nights in Vegas (maybe 2 nights we went last time and to be honest, i didn't like it that much) but i'm struggling to think of another place to go, before spending our last week or so in Los Angeles.

jackieblack

realised wrote: »

Then I really want to go to the Gran Canyon as last time we didn't get a chance. I had a look at the Maswik Lodge which Vikki mentiond earlier in the thread but it's £167 for the night i'm looking for (14-15th oct - date flexible) I don't really want to pay more than £100 anyone have any other recommendations?

There are several hotels/motels in Tusayan, on the road into the NP, which will be cheaper than staying inside the park.

IMO LA is a dump, much better places up and down the coast (from SanFran to San Diego) to spend your last week, or how about Yosemite? Stunning.

Venusflytrap

Vikki_74 wrote: »

By a "bus" I'm assuming you mean a campervan / RV type vehicle? I've never done anything like that, or any camping in the US, but have seen the topic covered here a few times in the past...

Try searching the overseas forum for 'RV' and there are quite a few different threads on the subject - just a couple here to get you started (going to add these to ther front page as I hadn't come across them before):

Driving an RV in the USA
Cheap USA Flights Needed!
Hiring Private Motorhome

There's also a lot of good info on the Trip Advisor Road Trips forum which I've linked to on the first page - one of their top questions (listed on the top right of the first page of the forum) is about RV hire and it's quite a common topic, so again maybe do a search on there and see what comes up.

I am a complete planner so need to know exactly where I'm going in advance, but it isn't essential if you'd rather be a bit more free spirited! However, I think that at least some campgrounds (and I assume RV parks) in the more popular spots e.g. in or near the National Parks require reservations quite far in advance, so you might need to do at least a bit of advance planning. I personally think you need to have at least a rough idea of what route you're going to take before you get there, even if you don't want to get down to the specifics of where you'll stay when until you arrive, just to avoid wasting loads of time once you're on holiday trying to decide where to head for next.

There are really endless possibilities in California for what type of trip you could have in two weeks, which is why I love it! You need to have a think about what kind of holiday you want to have (cities vs national/state parks vs beaches vs mountains vs desert!?) as well as how much time you want to spend driving around vs actually staying in and seeing the places you stop on the way. Just a couple of thoughts to get you started...

If you wanted to start and end in San Francisco then in two weeks you could make a nice loop by driving up the coast a bit to Muir Woods and Point Reyes, across to Napa/Sonoma then down to Yosemite, across to Carmel/Monterey and back up to San Francisco. Lake Tahoe would also be a possibility before Yosemite if you had time and depending on how much driving you wanted to do and when you would be taking the trip - after about October time you may run into problems with snow on the routes both to Lake Tahoe and down to Yosemite so would need to plan accordingly.

The very popular drive down the coast from San Francisco to Los Angeles or as far as San Diego would also be a possibility, but then you might be better flying into SFO and out of say LAX to avoid having to double back on yourself. Or I guess you could drive back up north via Yosemite and do it that way, but that might be pushing it a bit in just a couple of weeks depending on how far down the coast you drove on the first leg.

Either way, if you did decide on the RV option, you may be better off just looking to rent in once you'd left San Francisco - it's not the easiest place to have a car (expensive parking & all those hills!), let alone anything bigger.

Thx for taking the time and being so detailed. Agree that we need a wee bit of planning before setting off... will look through the links you posted and see what else follows.

Thanks again!

Vikki_74

realised wrote: »

We've decided to pay that little bit extra and fly direct. It's about £500 odd so not that bad.

Before I book i'm just trying to work out a rough plan. We're starting our trip in Phoenix and spending about 3-4 days there. Then I really want to go to the Gran Canyon as last time we didn't get a chance. I had a look at the Maswik Lodge which Vikki mentiond earlier in the thread but it's £167 for the night i'm looking for (14-15th oct - date flexible) I don't really want to pay more than £100 anyone have any other recommendations?

Then I'm not sure whether to spend a few nights in Vegas (maybe 2 nights we went last time and to be honest, i didn't like it that much) but i'm struggling to think of another place to go, before spending our last week or so in Los Angeles.

£500 is still a good price I reckon, especially for direct flights - glad that waiting a bit paid off for you!

Re. the Grand Canyon lodges, we are paying a lot less than that at Maswik Lodge (think it's about $100 for the night inc taxes) because we managed to book one of their little cabins - I think all that is left for your dates is one of the rooms in the refurbished part of their hotel block which are always more expensive. If you move your stay forward one night they have a 2 queen room in the older, non-refurbed part of the hotel block for only $92.

Alternatively, if the dates would work out there is some availability at Bright Angel Lodge the following week (18th or 20th October) - only $70 or $81 for a double cabin depending on whether or not you want a private bathroom...I think Bright Angel is pretty basic & personally we'd struggle to share just a double bed but it is cheap and right at the rim of the canyon.

ferf1223

realised wrote: »

Before I book i'm just trying to work out a rough plan. We're starting our trip in Phoenix and spending about 3-4 days there. Then I really want to go to the Gran Canyon as last time we didn't get a chance. I had a look at the Maswik Lodge which Vikki mentiond earlier in the thread but it's £167 for the night i'm looking for (14-15th oct - date flexible) I don't really want to pay more than £100 anyone have any other recommendations?

Have you checked the others in the park?

I think in general Bright Angel and Yavapai are less expensive than Maswik.

We stayed at Thunderbird Lodge and while it wasn't cheap ($162/night for a Canyon view room), the room was basic though the bathroom was very nice...it was very cool to walk out of the room and be at the rim...and the elk wandering around right in front of you was pretty cool. I know that rates are cheaper in Tusayan - but we thought staying at the rim was worth the extra...though we still think that the food served at the restaurants in the park is terrible...if we ever went again I think we'd make a fast food run to Tusayan instead.

Starrystarrynight

£500 still sounds like a great price. When I last checked the same flight we've booked, it was £670 each!

Hope you have a great time! :-)

realised wrote: »

We've decided to pay that little bit extra and fly direct. It's about £500 odd so not that bad.

Before I book i'm just trying to work out a rough plan. We're starting our trip in Phoenix and spending about 3-4 days there. Then I really want to go to the Gran Canyon as last time we didn't get a chance. I had a look at the Maswik Lodge which Vikki mentiond earlier in the thread but it's £167 for the night i'm looking for (14-15th oct - date flexible) I don't really want to pay more than £100 anyone have any other recommendations?

Then I'm not sure whether to spend a few nights in Vegas (maybe 2 nights we went last time and to be honest, i didn't like it that much) but i'm struggling to think of another place to go, before spending our last week or so in Los Angeles.

LillythePink

Well, we go next week and we can't wait.

I will be studying the links more closely to get some extra tips, but the info is great.

We fly into La - stay there for a few days
drive up to Monterey for a few days - Moto GP on the sunday :):)
Up to SF for a few nights
Drive out to Vegas (via a stop off in Bakersfield) for two nights
Out to the canyon for a night
back to LA for Disney/Universal Studios etc and a Baseball game!

Soooo looking forward to this

realised

Thanks all! I will check all the hotels you've all mentioned. We have already done the drive from SF to LA so want to do something different. Yosemite looks amazing, havent been there before!