3-4 week holiday USA July/August 2012

duchy

The other thing I liked about Disneyland is that as soon as you step out of the park you are "off site" with lots of independent food choices so you aren't tied to Disney's (often excellent) higher priced food choices -if you want you can pop off site for lunch or dinner and return really quickly.

Murph -I'd do the train over the flight too for the experience (and a couple fewer trips through security).

Murphy_The_Cat

duchy wrote: »

Murph -I'd do the train over the flight too for the experience (and a couple fewer trips through security).

I like using Amtrak, but its only a real alternative if you aren't in a hurry to go somewhere as its usually painfully slow (the Boston - Washington DC Acela Express being the exception).

Nobjocki

It seems to me, reading the OP, that having been to New York and Florida a number of times before but never to the West Coast it would make sense to concentrate entirely on the West Coast rather than trying to cram in too much travelling.

Flying in and out of the easiest and cheapest airport available it seems to me a superb trip is on offer by hiring a car and simply heading off to explore the region.

https://www.roadsideamerica.com

The Pacific Coast Highway north to south, the Napa Valley, San Fransisco, LA, San Diego, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Death Valley. - there's a shed-load to see in 3-4 weeks.

Why bother including the East Coast and Florida when you've seen it all before anyway.

Washington is okay for the monuments and historical stuff but other than that it's a fairly grotty place.

If I was going to add somewhere as well as the West Coast I'd throw in the Florida Panhandle or the Carolinas using cheap internal flights.

If you really,really must do New York then why not investigate auto-driveaway, where you drive other people's cars across America paying just gas.

I've done New York-LA three times this way, taking a different route every time but you need to be flexible and enjoy driving.

www.autodriveawaydc.com/carlist.html

For instance just looking at their latest page there's a car going from Washington to LA or one from NY to Boulder.

Bear in mind there's only a sample of cars on the website and many more come in and out every day into different offices - you won't even know where you might be going until you ring up.

But if you've got four weeks why not fly into New York and out of LA which gives you plenty of time to get to the West Coast to meet your friends.

I highly recommend it but as I say you have to be flexible.