Fly Drive - San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles

ag19lfc

My partner and I are planning a West Coast USA fly drive towards the end of 2016 - Sept/Oct time. Our itenary looks like this:

Flying from Manchester

Las Vegas - 3 nights

Grand Canyon (via Hoover Dam) - 1 night

Las Vegas - 1 night

Bishop (via Death Valley) - 1 night

Yosemite - 2 nights

San Francisco - 3 nights

Monterey - 2 nights

Cambria - 1 night

Beverly Hills - 4 nights

San Diego - 3 nights

Flying back to Manchester from LAX

Does anyone have any tips?

bagand96

You don't mention California Route 1 which is the coastal drive between LA and San Francisco. Pretty stunning drive in itself with some great places to see.

If you were going to do that a triangular route would work, for example:

Fly to LA
Drive the coastal route to San Francisco (over 3 days or so)
Drive San Fran - Yosemite - Death Valley - Vegas
Fly home from Vegas

Or the opposite way. Hoover dam is very near to Vegas and easy to do. Just keep the car for an extra day. Many options for Grand Canyon from a day trip out of Vegas, an all in trip with a nightstop, or even driving yourself.

force_ten

the route as planed looks good and should work well

only mega drive on your route is grand canyon to LA it is about 500 miles and is a good days driving, took us about 9 hrs with two stops

we did four nights in san fran one night in yosemite one night death valley five nights in vegas two nights in kayenta for monument valley two nights grand canyon south rim four nights in anaheim one night pismo beach one night monterey and back to san fran for our return flight

hover is an easy day trip from vegas as is the grand canyon if you go to west rim indian reservation near to the sky walk, if you want to do south rim grand canyon village then drive down from vegas and stay over at least one night

our trip was about 3700 miles total start to finish

PeacefulWaters

Very useful link (and thanks to John, Murphy, Jackie and others for the help they gave me):
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3248860

Sat in Phoenix Airport at the end of a ten day trip. Just a magnificent 2,444 mile loop from Phoenix taking in much of your route.

Phoenix was selected at the time because it was the cheapest option after looking at LA, San Fran, Vegas etc. A loop route to avoid additional car hire fees. Booked flights and car with BA Holidays - prices vary a lot over time but £600pp plus £250 for a decent sized car should be doable if you book at the right time.

Sedona
Barringer Meteor Crater
Lake Tahoe (didn't do this but want to)
17 Mile Drive
PCH Highway 1 including Malibu
San Diego (didn't do this but want to)

Well worth considering these in addition to your own ideas.

The whole thing has blown me away. Alas, 10 hours in BA cattle class now awaits.

LA? Mrs PW loved our visit to Rodeo Drive and Hollywood Blvd but it's a horrible place to drive. San Francisco rush hour is no fun either!

I'd aim to drive around 4 hours a day, perhaps pushing it to 5 maximum. I certainly preferred to avoid driving after dusk, although our high tempo visit needed it occasionally!

blindman

ag19lfc wrote: »

My partner and I are planning a West Coast USA fly drive towards the end of 2016 - Sept/Oct time.

We have made a list of places we'd like to see and added them to a map. Obviously, we'd like to keep the driving time to a minimum so we would be looking to fly into one city (picking up a car) and leaving from another.

The places we'd like to check out are:

San Francisco
(Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Painted Ladies, Lombard Street, Fisherman's Wharf)

Yosemite

Death Valley

Las Vegas
(Stratosphere observation deck, hotels, Fremont Street)

Hoover Dam

Grand Canyon

Los Angeles
(Warner Bros Studios, Universal Studios, Disneyland, Hollywood, Venice Beach, Beverley Hills)

Would it be best to do the trip in that order? i.e. fly into San Fran and depart back to the UK from LA? Yes

We are looking to do the whole trip in about 3 weeks so we are not rushing the trip.

Thanks

As PeacfulWaters has linked There's a SouthWest USA and the West Coast thread that has all the answers.

There's also a Las Vegas Thread

Here's a link to my last trip-LAX-SFO 21 days, 3526 miles and about £3k per couple.

Though I have done SFO-LAX previously.

glentoran99

We flew to san francisco.

Stayed 5 days, picked up car on the last day,

Drove to Santa Barbara - Stayed 1 day

Then to Holywood 3-days

San diego 2 days

Then vegas for 6 days, kept the car for 1 day in vegas so we could drive to the outlet malls, then returned the car in vegas and flew home from there

John259

Clockwise or anti-clockwise? Heading south on California 1 makes it easier to pull into the scenic overlooks.

Loop or not? Open-jaw/multi-city airfares should avoid any additional cost of flying into one city and out of another. If you rent the car via a broker outside the USA then you should be able to avoid a one-way rental drop-off fee between any two of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas but you'd need to check. Los Angeles to San Francisco via the coast road is highly scenic; San Francisco to Las Vegas via Yosemite, the Tioga Pass and Owens Valley/US395 is highly scenic; some people regard the drive on I-15 through the Mojave Desert from Las Vegas to the Cajon Pass as boring but other people find the wide open wilderness of the desert beautiful.

Where to start? Starting in San Francisco has the advantage that you could delay picking up the car until you leave the city centre (some San Francisco city centre hotels make a big charge for car parking, and that city has good public transport). But Las Vegas is a great place to start driving in the USA because it's much easier than either San Francisco or Los Angeles.

Mr_Wang

I would trade a few days in LA and head up to what is (in my opinion) the most spectacular national park in the west - Zion. And, if you are at Zion the it'd be rude not to head up through Dixie to Bryce Canyon

Just to add - Anyone will tell you that San Diego is infinitely better than LA, many (including myself) will also add that is is better than San Francisco.

Try Angels landing, maybe you'll have better luck than us: http://thesummerholidayofalifetime.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/angels-landing-zion-national-park-utah.html

Mr_Wang

John259 wrote: »

Clockwise or anti-clockwise? Heading south on California 1 makes it easier to pull into the scenic overlooks.

Loop or not? Open-jaw/multi-city airfares should avoid any additional cost of flying into one city and out of another. If you rent the car via a broker outside the USA then you should be able to avoid a one-way rental drop-off fee between any two of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas but you'd need to check. Los Angeles to San Francisco via the coast road is highly scenic; San Francisco to Las Vegas via Yosemite, the Tioga Pass and Owens Valley/US395 is highly scenic; some people regard the drive on I-15 through the Mojave Desert from Las Vegas to the Cajon Pass as boring but other people find the wide open wilderness of the desert beautiful.

Where to start? Starting in San Francisco has the advantage that you could delay picking up the car until you leave the city centre (some San Francisco city centre hotels make a big charge for car parking, and that city has good public transport). But Las Vegas is a great place to start driving in the USA because it's much easier than either San Francisco or Los Angeles.

Much better to start in San Diego and finish in San Francisco completely wiping off LA.

John259

I totally agree with the recommendation for Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks, wonderful places, very different to each other and very different to the Grand Canyon.

I also agree with avoiding Los Angeles except perhaps for Disneyland.

I can't comment about San Diego because I've only driven through it once on freeways.

Starting in San Diego and finishing in San Francisco would mean having to choose between the coast road or the Las Vegas/US395/Tioga Pass route, but with the three weeks that the OP has a loop trip would allow both routes to be done, and both are superb.

cubegame

If you've not done it before, you'll fall in love with doing it and want to do it again so don't be tempted to haul too far east into Utah with the suggestions of heading to Bryce/Zion etc. Leave that for another day.

For three weeks you have plenty of time to do the full shebang of the West Coast, Seattle to San Diego.