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

John259

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

1. What food and drink would you suggest carrying around in the car (e.g. bottled water, snacks etc)? Three people for 9 days.

Whatever you wish, but obviously only non-alcoholic drinks inside the car. It's extremely wise to always have a fair bit of water or soft drinks available in summer, both for normal use and especially if you suffer a car breakdown. There's no need to stock up for the whole trip, just purchase supplies from supermarkets or WalMart etc as you go. One year I developed an addiction (!) to WalMart's excellent pink grapefruit juice, sold in large plastic containers.

2. Is our current route reasonable? It's a little stretchier than I originally envisaged?

It looks good to me, but everyone is different regarding how long they want to drive each day and how many stops they want to make along the way.

4. Clothing. I'm assuming a good mix as temperatures could be anything from freezing point to 100F!

I'd agree with the higher figure, not so sure about the lower figure. But a good mix is very wise.

If you wife has specific movie locations she wants to visit, I'd suggest doing plenty of research beforehand to discover exactly where they are. For example, there's a chap on YouTube who's somewhat obsessed with the Back to the Future films, and created videos cutting between film clips and his family visiting exactly the same places, it must have taken ages to create.

Enjoy!

northwest1965

torbrex wrote: »

The trouble (in my view) with pre-booked accommodation is that it ties you to a particular route, I like the flexibility of just going with the flow and stopping whenever and wherever I want to, there is always a hotel even in some of the more remote locations.

We're doing our 3rd in a couple of weeks. We always pre book hotels, takes the hassle out of looking for somewhere when you arrive. You also get a better price booking ahead. Use hotels.com (other sites are available:rotfl:) where you can cancel up to 24hrs before.
We did this on our last trip, cancelled all the hotels, changed the route because of weather and rebooked them.

northwest1965

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

Thats a heck of a lot of driving, in a relativbely short period. It reads like a whistlestop tour of places that you've passed, but haven't had time to explore !. You say that tere are 3 people in your group - how old is traveller # 3 ?

Having done a route similar to this twice, you will be disappointed if you don't have time to stop.
The drive from GC via Hoover is a long drive, I would urge you to stay in Vegas You need a day & night in Vegas. Expericence the resorts!

Vegas to DV is a doable drive

Not enough time in SF, are you doing Alcatraz?

PeacefulWaters

northwest1965 wrote: »

Having done a route similar to this twice, you will be disappointed if you don't have time to stop.
The drive from GC via Hoover is a long drive, I would urge you to stay in Vegas You need a day & night in Vegas. Expericence the resorts!

Vegas to DV is a doable drive

Not enough time in SF, are you doing Alcatraz?

Alas, our reduced time means that we have to compromise. Alcatraz is a possible. Vegas gets canned as I'm not fussed about cities and Mrs PW, for reasons best known to herself (but reasons that she's fully entitled to), wishes to prioritise LA.

I'd love to spend more time in and around Death Valley / Yosemite.

John259

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

3. Any suggestions around "must do" stuff along the way?

There's a cluster of several national monuments in the Flagstaff area, including Walnut Canyon and Wupatki which are both ancestral pueblo people/Anasazi ruins, very interesting IMHO, that you might like to visit en route from the Grand Canyon to Winslow. There are details, descriptions and photos on Wikipedia and the National Park Service site http://www.nps.gov

In Seligman (the point on I-40 where you divert onto Az66) there's a collection of shops etc based on Route 66 memorabilia. Judging from videos it looks to be cheap tourist tackiness but maybe worth checking out.

There's a famous aquarium in Monterey which always gets extremely favourable comments from visitors.

As a previous poster said, you'll almost certainly bitterly regret not being able to give Yosemite more time but even a fleeting visit is better than no visit at all. IMHO it would be worth studying the map of the park (click the link in the left margin of http://www.nps.gov/yose/index.htm ) and figuring out how best to spend your time (if you haven't already done so).

Depending on how experienced and confident you are with driving in the USA, it might be worth using StreetView mode in Google Maps to do a virtual "drive" from the rental car depot at Phoenix airport to your first night's accommodation.

I'm assuming there are no issues with credit card acceptance or availability of fuel.

It would be wise to fill up in the Vegas area before Death Valley, and also on US395 (in Bishop, maybe) before turning onto CA120 (the Tioga Pass and Yosemite).

PeacefulWaters

Might ditch Lake Tahoe to give Yosemite a bit more time.

jackieblack

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

Might ditch Lake Tahoe to give Yosemite a bit more time.

Excellent plan

John259

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

Might ditch Lake Tahoe to give Yosemite a bit more time.

Yes, I think I'd agree with that, if only because of the drive between the two. It's about 200 miles on the west side of the Sierras from Yosemite Valley to South Lake Tahoe - generally very pleasant but not as good as either of the places themselves.

There's nothing wrong with Lake Tahoe though, I thoroughly enjoyed the day I spent driving round it, but IMHO Yosemite is even better.

torbrex

northwest1965 wrote: »

We're doing our 3rd in a couple of weeks. We always pre book hotels, takes the hassle out of looking for somewhere when you arrive. You also get a better price booking ahead. Use hotels.com (other sites are available:rotfl:) where you can cancel up to 24hrs before.
We did this on our last trip, cancelled all the hotels, changed the route because of weather and rebooked them.

As I said, I like the flexibility and I've never had reason to believe that I have paid more for a room than I would have if I'd pre-booked, in fact I have been able to wrangle good deals by getting a discount for rooms that otherwise would have been empty.

I have only been to 50 of the states so far and it has been my experience that rooms I have pre-booked (ususally first night) have been more expensive than the hotel next door that does not have online booking for overseas customers.

As for hassle looking for somewhere, this has never been a problem for me either on any of my road trips. Even arriving in a town late in the evening, I have been able to just walk into a hotel lobby and get a room.

When on a road trip, I know roughly where I want to go and while I stick to a general plan, I don't always stick to a planned route, I also never have the facilities to change a booking so pre-booking is not practical in that sense.


ETA
Sorry that should read 49 plus DC

Crispy_Ambulance

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

Alas, our reduced time means that we have to compromise. Alcatraz is a possible. Vegas gets canned as I'm not fussed about cities and Mrs PW, for reasons best known to herself (but reasons that she's fully entitled to), wishes to prioritise LA.

I'd love to spend more time in and around Death Valley / Yosemite.

Alcatraz gets booked up, so if you want to do it, you should book in advance. The website says the tour takes around 2 and half hours so you would need to factor that in.

Have a great trip!