California & Vegas Fly Drive

dazanteney4

Yeah the only reason we were looking at LA was for Universal Stuidos which i'm not massively keen on.

dazanteney4

Does anyone feel that one day in Yosemite is enough? Or is more time needed?

John259

dazanteney4 wrote: »

Does anyone feel that one day in Yosemite is enough? Or is more time needed?

After a holiday like this, many people wish they'd had more time in Yosemite. Even though Mariposa Grove is closed at the moment there's a lot to see in the Valley, there's Glacier Point, there's the various points of interest along the Tioga Pass Road, and some people enjoy visiting Hetch Hetchy. But everyone's different and has different priorities.

blindman

dazanteney4 wrote: »

Does anyone feel that one day in Yosemite is enough? Or is more time needed?

Tioga Road and Glacier point will be closed in April so you will only be doing the lower valley so one day may be enough.

Look at Priceline for SFO.

LA is huge and TBHO the less time you spend driving in it the better.
However you do need a car to get aorund the sights.

dazanteney4

blindman wrote: »

Tioga Road and Glacier point will be closed in April so you will only be doing the lower valley so one day may be enough.

Look at Priceline for SFO.

LA is huge and TBHO the less time you spend driving in it the better.
However you do need a car to get aorund the sights.

We are going at the end of May/June so i think we will be for the snow. LA doesnt massively appeal to us so as long as we can see the hollywood sign etc that will be great.

jackieblack

dazanteney4 wrote: »

Does anyone feel that one day in Yosemite is enough? Or is more time needed?

We spent three days and it wasn't enough

Roseh2104

dazanteney4 wrote: »

Hello All!

Me and my partner have now started to look at Honeymoon's (wedding in April) and we have played with the idea of a fly drive holiday around Cali and pop to Vegas. The companys that offer this seem to be a little bit more expensive than booking each hotel &flights through sites like expedia, hotels.com, Trivago etc.... The downside with this is that you have to pay for it all upfront. Rather than 10 weeks before like booking through a travel agent.

We were looking at flying into San Fran, driving down to LA then across to Vegas and finally to San Diego spending 2-3 days in each and stopping mid way.

Has anyone does this? And booked themselfs that can offer advice for us.

Thank you!
Darren

Hi Darren,
I actually did this last September although my last destination was New York! We managed 2 5* hotels and 2 3* hotels in amazing locations, the flight there and back and an additional internal flight, car hire and sat nav all for the bargain price of £2300 each! We researched thoroughly and got huge money off what we were originally going to pay! oh and breakfast was included in 2 hotels also

Crispy_Ambulance

We did a West Coast road trip this time last year, including Vegas, Grand Canyon, & Bryce & Zion Canyons. We booked all of our accommodation in advance as we are a family of 4 travelling at peak time. We got some good prices using Topcashback & booking sites, but always booked direct with the hotel if that was cheaper.

dazanteney4

This is what we are thinking of doing now -

London to San Francisco > San Francisco > San Francisco> San Francisco > (pick up car) Napa Valley - Salida > Yosemite/Bishop > Yosemite/Bishop > Vegas > Grand Canyon - South Rim > Vegas > Vegas > Vegas > SD > SD > SD > LA > Santa Maria > Monterey > SF - Stay at airport most likely > Flight home

John259

Salida to Yosemite Valley is about 105 miles.
Merced to Yosemite Valley is about 80 miles.
Bishop is about 140 miles from Yosemite Valley.
So I'd suggest two nights in Merced (for a day trip to Yosemite Valley), and one night in Bishop (getting to Bishop via the Tioga Pass Road).

If you want to stay closer to the park then you could consider places such as Mariposa and Oakhurst but accommodation rates there would probably be higher.

I've used Merced as a base for Yosemite quite a few times and it works well for me, but it's too much driving back and forth for some people.

BTW when checking mileages to or from Yosemite Valley in Google Maps I find specifying Curry Village works well, otherwise the results can be misleading.