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

PurplePow

[FONT=&quot]Thanks for the help everyone! No doubt I’ll be back when I start finalising details.[/FONT]

gracie10

Has anyone stayed at Crystal Cove beach Cottages before please?

trevor8

hi I am travelling to san fransisco next month for 16 nights.Travelling around and ending up in vegas I have 2 questions
We will be hiring a car so would you order online or sort out when I am in San fransisco as am there for 4 nights and is no rush also would you get a sat nav over here or hire it with the car? thanks for all your help Trevor

sjw64

trevor8 wrote: »

hi I am travelling to san fransisco next month for 16 nights.Travelling around and ending up in vegas I have 2 questions
We will be hiring a car so would you order online or sort out when I am in San fransisco as am there for 4 nights and is no rush also would you get a sat nav over here or hire it with the car? thanks for all your help Trevor

Hi

Im planning next years Holiday, landing at SF and picking up a hire car after a few days before heading south to LA and ending up in Vegas. I will be ordering/paying the car online. I will be taking my own satnav with US maps installed and/or my smart phone with satnav as I think the price the hire firms charge are a rip off. Although I will be guided what others think

gracie10

You won't need your car in San Fran, best to pick up when you leave as parking is so expensive. We hired our sat nav from eBay. Worked out really well for us, think it was about £20 for 3 weeks hire.

northwest1965

trevor8 wrote: »

hi I am travelling to san fransisco next month for 16 nights.Travelling around and ending up in vegas I have 2 questions
We will be hiring a car so would you order online or sort out when I am in San fransisco as am there for 4 nights and is no rush also would you get a sat nav over here or hire it with the car? thanks for all your help Trevor

As said, you won't need one for SF, unless you want to travel out a bit. Check the cost of parking at your hotel. I would book and pay now, it will be cheaper. Check various sites. We used to use Dollar.co.uk a lot. It's Alamo this time.

Have heard many people buying the satnav from Walmart when you are there.

We use Co Pilot app on our mobile

PeacefulWaters

Okay, I'm browsing through the rest of this wonderful thread but I'm open to any other ideas along the way.

Here's the vague and woolly notion that needs some meat on the bones.

1) Get to anywhere in the USA as cheaply as possible on 18th October.

2) Spend 48 hours there (Orlando, Philadelphia and Chicago are current favourites).

3) Fly to San Francisco, Vegas, Phoenix, San Diego or LA (or any other airport I've overlooked) using Avios points and a first class flight.

4) Hire a car (pre-booked, decent size, air conditioning and loud music) for 10 days or so and plan a loop route to take in as much as possible without overdoing it (4 hours a day driving?).

5) Pre-book budget motels for the planned route, ideally less than $100 a night including breakfast.

6) Fly back to anywhere that can give me a flight back to the UK on Avios without BA taxes!

Mrs PW wants to do the Pacific Highway and LA. PW Jr wants Death Valley, Hoover Dam etc. I'd like 24 hours in Vegas and have visions of Roadrunner cartoons and Hotel California album covers in my head and would love to do San Francisco properly.

I suspect there may have to be compromise in a few places. But I'm keen to flesh out the practicalities either for this year or next year.

Your thoughts are appreciated!

John259

There are numerous options and possibilities, with no right or wrong answers because it depends all sorts of factors such as what you want to see and do and how much time you have.

In the second half of October you should be ok for the roads over the Sierras. In recent years the only road which closed for the winter in October was Mammoth Lakes - details: http://www.caltrans.ca.gov/hq/roadinfo/clsdlst.htm

In twenty years of renting standard cars in the USA I've never had one without air conditioning, but I guess if you opted for something exotic (and expensive) you'd need to make sure.

Four hours a day will limit you but driving in the USA outside of the big cities isn't stressful so you might want to consider relaxing that limit a bit, balanced by adding intervening sightseeing days between long driving days.

The least expensive motel chain in the USA is Motel 6 (basic, safe, clean, comfortable), then there are various mid-price chains such as Super 8, then the expensive chains such as Days Inn, Holiday Inn, La Quinta, etc. Think of Motel 6 as being equivalent to Aldi and Lidl, Super 8 as equivalent to Tesco and Sainsbury's, and the more upmarket chains as being equivalent to Marks & Spencer and Waitrose, and take your pick as desired.

Here's one possible route but you'd need to put it into Google Maps to check daily mileages and how many days it would take. There are many other possibilities of course and I'm definitely not trying to claim any prizes for this particular route.

If you start in San Francisco you could work down the Pacific Coast Highway stopping one night in the Monterey area and a second night in the Morro Bay/San Luis Obispo area. The PCH needs two overnight stops, because racing down that road would be dangerous and also destroy the whole purpose of the drive (IMHO).

From Los Angeles you could get to Las Vegas via Death Valley and then fly back from Vegas.

Alternatively you could drive directly from LA to Vegas, then work your way back to San Francisco via Death Valley, US395 up Owens Valley (with an overnight stop at Lone Pine or Bishop), the Tioga Pass and Yosemite (which needs at least two full days to explore, but even a brief visit is better than no visit). There would be less pressure on accommodation in and around Yosemite at that time of year compared to the summer months.

I'd suggest having a play around in Google Maps to see what's possible. If Google Maps suggests a route between two places that you don't like, you can drag a point on the route to make it do what you want (sorry if that's obvious).

There's information about the national parks on the official NPS site http://www.nps.gov and Wikipedia is a great place to start finding information about not only the parks but also towns, cities, tourist attractions, etc. Again, apologies if I'm telling you what you already know.

There are also numerous road trip videos on YouTube covering this route and the places on it - some of them are total garbage, but some of them are very informative and interesting.

Hope this helps a bit.

PeacefulWaters

John259 wrote: »

There are numerous options and possibilities, with no right or wrong answers because it depends all sorts of factors such as what you want to see and do and how much time you have.

Yes. I appreciate my specifications are exceptionally vague.

In the second half of October you should be ok for the roads over the Sierras. In recent years the only road which closed for the winter in October was Mammoth Lakes - details: http://www.caltrans.ca.gov/hq/roadinfo/clsdlst.htm

Very useful information. This would never have crossed my mind!

In twenty years of renting standard cars in the USA I've never had one without air conditioning, but I guess if you opted for something exotic (and expensive) you'd need to make sure.

I assumed as much. Focus / Mondeo size is in my head. Probably the latter for comfort and range of fuel tank. Are there any odd refuelling rules or is it all self-service and credit card?

Four hours a day will limit you but driving in the USA outside of the big cities isn't stressful so you might want to consider relaxing that limit a bit, balanced by adding intervening sightseeing days between long driving days.

Good call. I'm still recovering from a hellish 6 hours on the M6 so perhaps being a little cautious. I have done a longish drive through Pennsylvania which was a joy. A dozen days of it may be a stretch though. Time for Mrs PW to share the load perhaps.

The least expensive motel chain in the USA is Motel 6 (basic, safe, clean, comfortable), then there are various mid-price chains such as Super 8, then the expensive chains such as Days Inn, Holiday Inn, La Quinta, etc. Think of Motel 6 as being equivalent to Aldi and Lidl, Super 8 as equivalent to Tesco and Sainsbury's, and the more upmarket chains as being equivalent to Marks & Spencer and Waitrose, and take your pick as desired.

That's really helpful and at a quick glance easily within price range. Budget chains should be fine. As long as I can park for free, access wi-fi, sleep, have a coffee in the morning and find an easy and cheap breakfast within 5 minutes walk I'm happy.

An opportunity to build up some reward points too which will help with the occasional Days Inn we use in the UK.

Alternatively you could drive directly from LA to Vegas, then work your way back to San Francisco via Death Valley, US395 up Owens Valley (with an overnight stop at Lone Pine or Bishop), the Tioga Pass and Yosemite (which needs at least two full days to explore, but even a brief visit is better than no visit). There would be less pressure on accommodation in and around Yosemite at that time of year compared to the summer months.

This is winning in my mind at the moment.

I'd suggest having a play around in Google Maps to see what's possible. If Google Maps suggests a route between two places that you don't like, you can drag a point on the route to make it do what you want (sorry if that's obvious).

It is obvious. But your post is all the better for it. Helps to turn the vague into the specific.

Hope this helps a bit.

It is a fantastic starting point. Time to get the employers to agree to the time off work and then piece it all together.

Thanks.

John259

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

YAre there any odd refuelling rules or is it all self-service and credit card?

In cities you usually have to pay before pumping, which is awkward if you don't know how much you'll need. This practice is spreading out into rural areas.

You also need to figure out how to switch the pump on before it will dispense the fuel. Usually you have to press a button to select the grade or lift a lever.

In Oregon (and New Jersey) there is no self-service. This is to give gas station attendants jobs. In those states there's a choice between quick service (fill only) and full service (fill, clean windscreen, check oil level if you wish).

Time for Mrs PW to share the load perhaps.

Good idea. Be sure to specify her as an additional driver to the rental car company, for which they will make an additional charge, and she'll need to show her driving licence when you pick up the car.

As long as I can park for free

I've never paid for parking at a motel in the USA or Canada but I avoid city centres. I've read many reports that establishments in city centres often charge for parking and some have valet parking.

access wi-fi

That's generally ok nowadays but you'd need to check each individual location on the relevant chain's web site to make sure it's in the list of facilities.

have a coffee in the morning

Motel 6 used to have free coffee from the office from 7am; I'm not sure if that still applies. Many (but not all) Super 8's and the more expensive chains have breakfast rooms and/or in-room coffee makers. Motels tend to be near restaurants but in the USA places are so spread out that the distances may be too great to walk. But finding a source of coffee and breakfast within a five minute drive is generally but certainly not universally possible. Again I'm risking the obvious: you can see nearby restaurants on Google Maps and have a virtual wander around in StreetView mode. For example, you might want to have a look up and down US395 through Bishop, California: http://goo.gl/SNIcqP