Holiday planning - California

melly1980

Im thinking of mooching over to California and I fancy doing a bit of travelling around. Ive seen these pre-prepared self drive tours however I dont want to go to all of the places and Id rather spend a few more days in a few of the places.

Is there anywhere good on-line for designing stuff like this or do you pretty much just have to book your flights and car and then do the rest separate.

As a rough guide I'd like to fly into LA, spend 5 or 6 days there to see the likes of Disney, Universal and a few other places, a day in SD, a couple in Vegas, see the Grand Canyon and go to one of the national parks that is most convenient to getting to from Vegas. What Im hoping to find is somewhere that I can self create a tour.

Thanks for any help.

Alan_Bowen

My advice is to buy a good guide to California and Nevada and choose what you want to see. I wouldn't spend 6 days in LA, I would spend a lifetime in San Diego for example. It is quite easy to make it up as you go so long as you have your first night's accommodation booked and accommodation in Vegas which is much cheaper from Monday to Thursday but can be impossible to book if there is a big convention in town.

Many times we have just set off in the car, up Highway 1 for example and stopped wherever we wanted, Santa Barbara was lovely and then just found somewhere to stay when we felt we had done enough driving or decided the town was nice or quirky, Solvang for example. I always knew where I was going but just not when I would get there.

It probably makes sense to fly in and out of different airports to avoid having to back track and there is usually no drop off charge in California so you could fly into San Francisco and out of San Diego for example. Providing you are not travelling in peak season you can book hotels as you go along, the local tourist or convention offices can tell you which hotels and motels have rooms each day if necessary but normally I keep a AAA or Mobil guide to hotels in the car and just look for one that doesn't sound like a complete dive.

If you are a planner and want everything pre booked, grab a couple of brochures for coach tours of the west coast and see where they go and how long they say as a guide but make up your own mind. Disney and Universal are good starting points but apart from perhaps a day at the beach at Santa Monica or further south at Newport, I wouldn't stay any longer in LA unless you have a mad desire to see something else but read up and decide what you want to. Enjoy, its one of the best holidays you will ever have

melly1980

Alan_Bowen wrote: »

snip

Cheers

What I had in mind is fly into LA and spend that say 5 nights there. I'd like to do a day at each Disney park, a day at Universal and perhaps a beach day.

Next down to San Diego....dont know much about there but I would do Sea World and one of my little ones is crazy about army and navy stuff and I think they have the USS Midway here so call it 2 nights.

From san diego, across to Tuscan (prob need a stop?), only going there to see the Airforce museum and boneyard 9again for the little un. Call this 2 nights.

Up to Grand Canyon, stay over and spend the next day there. Move on up to Zion National park, same again.

Into Vegas for a couple of nights

Possibly back to LA stopping on the way somewhere overnight

ish...:D

nickj_2

i did this about 20 years ago, i did a fly/drive with virgin , started in LA, went up the coast to san fran , thru the national park, death valley , grand canyon , san diego and then back to LA, me and my mate either stayed in motels - or camped we got a directory of travelodges which on the whole were fine and reasonably priced , the campsite were great , we stayed in one which hada thermal spa which was fantastic .took us 3 weeks and we covered just around 4k in miles , totally knackered at the end .... needed another holiday to get over it

i think if i were to do it again , i would start off in san fran, and depart from san diego

Rahven

Loads of useful posts on this thread https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3248860

duchy

Sounds like a plan -I'd consider flying home from Vegas as the drive from Vegas to LA is pretty ho-hum.

I'd suggest staying at least 2 nights right by Disney as it's inexpensive with lots of choice . We usually priceline on name your own price this as all the hotels are close -we actually ended up with the same hotel 2 years running and it suited us down to the ground-free regular shuttle to the parks so a break from driving -nice pool and Target right opposite. We moved hotels to do Universal but really it wouldn't have been a bad idea to do a little more driving and stayed the Universal night there -really it was less packing/unpacking versus LA traffic.
Downtown LA has no real centre -for me LA is Disney, Universal and we did the open top tour of the stars homes -which touched places like Rodeo Drive -and started at the Chinese Theatre so we checked out some of the star in the pavement we wanted to see and no-one felt there was anything more we wanted to see in LA itself-the beach is a good idea. San Diego is really nice. The LA tour took us to places we probably wouldn't have seen/known about if we were driving -we found reasonable parking near the Chinese theatre and just booked there and then-the guide was good -a bit of waffle about US celebs we'd never heard of but most of them we'd heard of

melly1980

cheers all, most useful

cottyh24

We did San Diego and Tucson as part of our holiday last year - it's a bit of a drive between the two (about 8 hours including stops) but my husband doesn't drive and I managed it fine. If there are two of you who can share the driving, it'll be easy.

I can recommend the Dolphin Motel in San Diego. It's nothing fancy but was spotlessly clean, very cheap for SD at less than £40 per night and in a nice area. You'd have to check with them as I don't know if they have family rooms though.

In Tucson we stayed in The Windmill Inn and Suites. Again, I would recommend this hotel. The rooms are all suites so you should have the space for the whole family. Looking at my records from last year, we paid £43 per night for our suite.

As for your plans, I love LA but if I were you I'd spend 4 nights in LA which will give you 3 full days to see both Disney Parks and Universal. You could then move on to San Diego for 3 nights. If you set off early enough you will arrive in plenty of time to spend the rest of the day touring the USS Midway and maybe check out Old Town San Diego. You could have your beach day on Coronado - the beach there is lovely and the Hotel del Coronado is right on the beach. You would also have a day for Seaworld.

Your drive to Tucson will take up the most of one day so you will need to stay there 2 nights if you want to spend a day at the boneyard (we did this and really enjoyed it).

Driving from Tucson to the Grand Canyon is another long drive and will also take up most of one day. To properly see the canyon you should give yourself at least one full day there, ideally more so 2 nights minimum. Maybe you could drop the other national park?

You could then finish in Vegas for a couple of nights and fly back from there. It makes no sense for you to drive back to LA as you can hire a car between California and Nevada without incurring any one way drop off fees (Dollar and Hertz definitely don't charge as I've used both but some do so double check before you pay).

If you're going this year, you will have to book your Grand Canyon accommodation now, infact you may already be too late as it books up really early. You can also stay in Tusayan which is right outside of the canyon, or (as we did) stay in Williams which is an hours drive away.

I hope this has been helpful and if you do need any more info I'd be happy to try and help. I hope you enjoy your holiday, whatever you decide.

melly1980

cottyh24 wrote: »

We did San Diego and Tucson as part of our holiday last year - it's a bit of a drive between the two (about 8 hours including stops) but my husband doesn't drive and I managed it fine. If there are two of you who can share the driving, it'll be easy.

with 4 kids in the car.....are we there yet are we nearly there yet :rotfl::rotfl:

Is there a stop off on the way to stay over or just go for it? Any places to visit on the way that are of interest?

cottyh24 wrote: »

As for your plans, I love LA but if I were you I'd spend 4 nights in LA which will give you 3 full days to see both Disney Parks and Universal. You could then move on to San Diego for 3 nights. If you set off early enough you will arrive in plenty of time to spend the rest of the day touring the USS Midway and maybe check out Old Town San Diego. You could have your beach day on Coronado - the beach there is lovely and the Hotel del Coronado is right on the beach. You would also have a day for Seaworld. .

Aye, I can look at that. I had the 4th day as a beach day or waterpark but that could be spent in SD doing the same.

cottyh24 wrote: »

Your drive to Tucson will take up the most of one day so you will need to stay there 2 nights if you want to spend a day at the boneyard (we did this and really enjoyed it).

Aye, current plan at the moment is drive there in one go, stay over night. Do the day at the air museum, stay over again then drive to the GC the next day

cottyh24 wrote: »

Driving from Tucson to the Grand Canyon is another long drive and will also take up most of one day. To properly see the canyon you should give yourself at least one full day there, ideally more so 2 nights minimum. Maybe you could drop the other national park?

Right, I get you. So when driving from tuscan to GC dont bank on seeing much of the GC that day. Extra day at the Gc, scrap Zion and go straight to Vegas.

cottyh24 wrote: »

You could then finish in Vegas for a couple of nights and fly back from there. It makes no sense for you to drive back to LA as you can hire a car between California and Nevada without incurring any one way drop off fees (Dollar and Hertz definitely don't charge as I've used both but some do so double check before you pay).
.

I wanted to try that Calico ghost town so was think of driving back to LA via there and having a stop off. Is that doable?

Cheers once again.

cottyh24

4 kids on a road trip - you're braver than me lol!

We did think about stopping in Yuma for the night but decided it was better to just go straight to Tucson. However there are only the two of us so we don't have the 'are we there yet' scenario. Yuma is the only place of any size between SD and Tucson and we decided there wasn't enough to see to justify us losing a night, plus it's only 3 hours from SD so you'd still have a bit of a drive the next day. I suppose the one thing that would be useful to know is how long you were planning your holiday to be. We generally do 16 nights but if you're stuck to 14 then there's less room for manouvre with staying extra nights en route.

If you do have enough nights you could see Zion and if it was just adults you may be able to pack everything in, but with 4 kids it may just be a bit much (and I come from a family where my parents just put us in the car, went over to France and drove round Europe for our holidays so realise it can be done with children).

The other thing you may have to consider is the heat. I presume you will be going in school holidays - Vegas especially can get very hot in August (120 degrees is not unheard of). If you need more info on Vegas I can help but you should also check out the sticky at the top of this forum. There are lots of people on there who will be able to answer pretty much any Vegas related question you have.

There are several ghost towns in Arizona and Nevada so if you're not stuck on Calico, you could have a look and see if any others interest you/get good reviews. The drive you suggest is doable but if you have the deadline of a plane to catch, a 5 hour + drive isn't something you necessarily want to be having to do.

One thing you'll need to remember for the SD - Tucson drive is to keep your passports handy. You get pretty close to the Mexican-USA border and you can be stopped and asked for ID at a Border Patrol roadblock. We weren't on that drive but we were on our way out of Tombstone.

melly1980

cottyh24 wrote: »

snip.

cheers for that....yeah with the ghost town i just fancied it but if there is essentially the same thing elsewhere on my travels I could do that.

In terms of holidays Id probably overlap with the school hols to make a half @rsed attempt to keep the school happy

As a guess, the June holidays with the week after when they should be back. Either that or the same principle at easter time or Aug / 1st week in sept.