Fly Drive California - Pre book Accom or not

swebb99

Hi,


I'm in between work contracts at the moment so I'm looking at booking a fly drive holiday just for myself in California. Im into my hiking in the UK so I plan to do Yosemite, Death Valley and I'd also like to see the Grand Canyon and Hoover Damn. Anyway my route is still a bit up in the air but I've got some basic idea's.

Companies like TrailFinders seem to offer some fairly interesting deals and let me adjust things around and on first glance seem to be fairly well priced. However I'm wondering if I would be better booking flights myself and hire cars (seems fairly easy), but its the accommodation I'm not totally sure about. I don't need anything flash just somewhere to lay my head an maybe somewhere with wifi would be useful. I'm not clear at all how easy it is just to arrive at places in the US and find motels or hotels that have rooms. I'm probably looking to go in the next 2 to 3 weeks.

My thinking was if I pre-book my first night then make it up from there, that makes me a bit more flexible. However I don't really want to get caught out with no accommidation or very expensive accommodation. Maybe a RV might work out better (cheaper!), I need to look into that.

Anyway any thoughts, should I pre-book or wing it?

Thanks

Steve

8u87fhsd

When we went last Nov (San Francisco > Yosemite > Mojave > Death Valley > Las Vegas) we winged it. I'd worked out where we'd be staying each night & had a list of 3-5 motels/hotels (off of Trip Advisor etc.) in each location (so if first was full could use second etc.) & just turned up. If you are staying in Mojave I'd recommend the Desert Inn (http://www.mojavedesertinn.com/) - straight out of the movies, dirt cheap, clean & friendly.

N.B. hotels in SF & LV were pre-booked.

We took the helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon from Las Vegas, expensive but worth it esp. as a few people said the drive to the Canyon is long & sloooow (from the hotel door-to-door flight took ~ 3hrs & the coach trip would have taken about 10-11).

Hope you have a great time (we did)

Alan_Bowen

An RV will certainly not be cheaper and is very expensive for one person. You must book accommodation at least for the day of your arrival otherwise they won't let you travel. For the rest I would take a chance at this stage except for Las Vegas. You need to check if there is a convention in town in which case every room may be booked, I once tried to book from a hotel room in Huntington Beach and could find nowhere at all in Vegas, in fact it did me a favour, I discovered San Diego instead and have been going back ever since. Yosemite also has very limited accommodation so you ought to book that if you want to stay overnight, alternatively you could find accommodation in Merced and just drive in each day.

tingtong

swebb99 wrote: »

Hi,


I'm in between work contracts at the moment so I'm looking at booking a fly drive holiday just for myself in California. Im into my hiking in the UK so I plan to do Yosemite, Death Valley and I'd also like to see the Grand Canyon and Hoover Damn. Anyway my route is still a bit up in the air but I've got some basic idea's.

Companies like TrailFinders seem to offer some fairly interesting deals and let me adjust things around and on first glance seem to be fairly well priced. However I'm wondering if I would be better booking flights myself and hire cars (seems fairly easy), but its the accommodation I'm not totally sure about. I don't need anything flash just somewhere to lay my head an maybe somewhere with wifi would be useful. I'm not clear at all how easy it is just to arrive at places in the US and find motels or hotels that have rooms. I'm probably looking to go in the next 2 to 3 weeks.

My thinking was if I pre-book my first night then make it up from there, that makes me a bit more flexible. However I don't really want to get caught out with no accommidation or very expensive accommodation. Maybe a RV might work out better (cheaper!), I need to look into that.

Anyway any thoughts, should I pre-book or wing it?

Thanks

Steve

Personally, I always pre-book. With the internet you can shop around so much that I doubt you would get better rates just walking in. Also, I don't like the idea of wasting my holiday time trying to find a room for the night.

What I would suggest is to make sure all the hotels are booked on refundable rates, so if you do need to change things around you can. You mention Yosemite, the accommodation there can get booked up months in advance so it's not really the place to just turn up needing a room.

Anyway, hope you have a great time whatever you decide to do.

jackieblack

You definitely need to book your first night's accomodation as you have to give this (on the API, I believe - you used to have to put it on the green cards but I believe these have been phased out since our last vist) and they won't let you in without an address for your first night!

Accomodation in Yosemite (for all the National Parks really) can get booked up a long time in advance.

You're now entering the peak summer season so it may be a bit trickier to find rooms than at a quieter time of year, but if you're not too fussy you'll probably find something.

Tusayan, just outside the Grand Canyon, has several hotels/motels, much cheaper than staying inside the Nat park.

We've booked a fly-drive with Trailfinders this year and have booked all our accomodation in advance, but all the accomodation we've booked can be cancelled up to the day before if our plans change.

steveo3002

id book the first couple of nights so your settled

as for can you do as you go , yes easily as long as its not a major public holiday or local event , but having said that we did it one time and wasted time trudging around looking for rooms etc

maybe make a list of reccomended places from tripadvisor , you could book some that have a decent cancelation policy