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

katy_30

Hello

I am planning a road trip of California and would appreciate feedback on my proposed plan.

Fly into SF
SF (3 nights)
Yesomite (2 nights) Gives us time to complete the Half Dome Hike.
Carmel or Monetery (1 night)
LA (2 or 3 nights)
San Diego (2 ngihts)
Las Vegas (2/3 nights)
We will be hiring a car the day we leave SF.

John259

katy_30 wrote: »

I am planning a road trip of California and would appreciate feedback on my proposed plan.

That looks great to me.

I like your idea of delaying picking up the car until you're ready to leave San Francisco.

Are you aware of the difficulty of the Half Dome Trail? There's a lot of good information about it in the Yosemite section of the US National Park Service site (sorry if you've already fully researched it).

Just an idea - have you considered making time to include Zion National Park in southwestern Utah (about 165 miles northeast of Las Vegas)? Personally I'd opt for Zion instead of San Diego but obviously that's just my opinion. There's a great video of the most extreme trail in Zion on YouTube:
Username: LonnyandDeanne
Title: EXTREME HIKING Angels Landing with the 7d
(their upper case).
The park also has many other far less challenging trails.

katy_30

Thanks for the advice about Zion. I might take a look at that.

We have looked into the Half Dome and it does look challenging - we are both in a good state of fitness so hopefully we will be able to make it.

jackieblack

katy_30 wrote: »

Hello

I am planning a road trip of California and would appreciate feedback on my proposed plan.

Fly into SF
SF (3 nights)
Yesomite (2 nights) Gives us time to complete the Half Dome Hike.
Carmel or Monetery (1 night)
LA (2 or 3 nights)
San Diego (2 ngihts)
Las Vegas (2/3 nights)
We will be hiring a car the day we leave SF.

We did a trip very similar trip to the first half of yours a few years ago, although we had a couple of additional stops, Pismo Beach (for surfing) and Ventura( for easy access to Six Flags Magic Mountain), we spent longer in Monterey as we wanted to visit the Aquarium and go whale watching.
We had done LA, San Diego, Las Vegas the previous year so didn't bother with those (although we unexpectedly ended up with 8 days in LA/ Long Beach courtesy of that volcano in Iceland )
Like you, we picked up our car the day we left SF as we didn't need one there and parking is expensive.

blindman

katy_30 wrote: »

Hello

I am planning a road trip of California and would appreciate feedback on my proposed plan.

Fly into SF
SF (3 nights)
Yesomite (2 nights) Gives us time to complete the Half Dome Hike.
Carmel or Monetery (1 night)
LA (2 or 3 nights)
San Diego (2 ngihts)
Las Vegas (2/3 nights)
We will be hiring a car the day we leave SF.

When are you going? Weather can affect Yosemite plans.
Have you booked inside or outside the park? Good places get booked up months in advance.

IMHO I'd miss LA unless there's a really good reason to stay there.

Not quite the way I'd do this but each to their own.

John259

OP, if you miss out both LA and San Diego then you could leave Ca1/PCH at Ventura to get to Victorville via Santa Clarita and Palmdale, thereby completely avoiding the Los Angeles freeways. It would also be possible to start heading east from San Luis Obispo and get to Barstow via Bakersfield but that's possibly a bit extreme.

One of those options might generate enough time to visit Bryce Canyon and Cedar Breaks as well as Zion. All three are in the same general area of southwestern Utah.

katy_30

We are starting the holiday the first week in June. We would just like to experience LA. We are only staying three nights so we can visit the Six Flags theme park. In terms of Yesomite I have looked at accommodation and all that's a available in the park is curry village so we will be roughing it for a couple of nights.

gracie10

blindman wrote: »

Look at VRBO

Used them a few times, always OK.

Thanks, did look at these, a lot of them seem to be minimum 7 nights in the summer.
I think I'm trying to find somewhere similar to our 3 nights we spent at kontiki inn at Pismo beach. Loved the place, the whole laid back atmosphere, am trying to find somewhere similar between LA and San Diego!!

jackieblack

katy_30 wrote: »

We would just like to experience LA. We are only staying three nights so we can visit the Six Flags theme park.

Six Flags is in Valencia, north of LA, (about 40 miles inland from Ventura/Oxnard.)
If driving from Monterey, I'd stay overnight at a hotel close to Six Flags to do that and then visit the specific area of LA that you wish see the following day.
LA is vast and traffic is dreadful, what else do you want to see/do in LA? Location will be key to maximising a short amount of time.

visidigi

Seldom_Seen_Kid wrote: »

I need to send some time reading this thread, but in the mean time my general question is :

We are planning on flying from Las Vegas to San Francisco for a few days, and I was just wondering if there was anything I needed to look at regarding airlines.

Basically, I live in Leeds and normally fly Jet2 or Ryan Air on european city breaks. I follow the rules, and I am general happy with the flight against the cost.

Go southwest, no bag charges for up to two pieces. Usually plenty of discount codes around if you have a hunt too.

They are the airline that inspired RyanAir...