Planning USA Trip

Murphy_The_Cat

John259 wrote: »

IMHO it's a pity that the OP plans to fly from Las Vegas to San Francisco, missing out all the wonderful country in between including Death Valley, US395/Owens Valley and the Tioga Pass. But it's the OP's holiday...

I really like Palm Springs as well, which was a lovely (if long) way to avoid LA.
Death Valley is a place like no other - we tried to fry an egg on the bonnet of our rental car. It was the week after they nearly broke the all time temp record.
It was that hot that the Suburban that we were in ran out of puff at 88mph !

duchy

Bodders11 wrote: »

Okay, so my friend and I agreed (loosely) our itinerary today, as follows:

As far as I know ....I don't know you LOL


14th September - Southampton to Dublin - Afternoon and evening in Dublin


15th September - Dublin to Las Vegas - Air Canada flight with layover in Toronto

For Canada you now need their version of an ESTA - check to see if it is needed if you are only transitting (or may be wise to get one anyway in case you get delayed at Toronto



4 nights in Las Vegas

Lots of choice there- come on over to the Vegas thread once you've decided which hotels you like the look of for more advice


19th September - Fly Las Vegas to San Francisco


3 nights in San Fran. Pick up a car after 3 nights and spend 11 nights 'cruising' through California (places to stop/visit to be determined)


3rd October - Fly LA to New York overnight

Often it's cheaper to fly out from other LA area airports like Burbank to NYC rather than LAX- also may be worth checking South West fares from San Diego and making that your last California stop and fly SAN to NYC .


4th October - check in to NY hotel and spend 3 nights sightseeing (although I will try to do 4 nights if I can twist my friends arm).


7th October - overnight flight to Dublin


8th October - flight to Southampton from Dublin


All of the above flights I can obtain for £656.00 (without baggage charges).


I am sourcing accommodation for Las Vegas, San Fran and New York whilst my friend is planning the 11 day itinerary. I'll post again once this is developed.


Thanks for all the advice so far!

Flights

Kayak using Virgin DUB LAS/JFK DUB £368 (via Expedia)
LAS SFO Jetblue £60
SAN via SFO to JFK overnight Virgin America £140 (daytime flights same price)
Ryanair SOU DUB rtn £51

Total £619 so a little cheaper than your costing but I used San Diego -if you want to depart from LA area - make Disneyland your last stop and fly from the nearest airport which is Santa Ana (SNA) for £99 with United which would take off £41 so totl for flights £571 (personally I'd prefer Virgin over Air Canada )

duchy

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

my 2p worth.
spend a bit of quite time jotting down the things that you'd like to do whilst in California, It'll help enormously in your planning.
If you can make it far as San Diego, all the better. Its a nice place to spend some time.

p.s. avoid LA (except for flying away from it). There are plenty of much nicer places to enjoy in CA.

I think most people feel they *should* do LA - we did a day at Disney, a day at Universal and then did the Tour of the Movie Stars homes which touched all the major Hollywood sites starting from the Chinese Theater and that was enough . Glad we did it but now any trip to LA is for Disneyland so we flyinto Santa Ana and avoid the rest completely (it's usually an add on to visiting other places in the west.)

duchy

John259 wrote: »

Amen to that but Santa Monica isn't bad and Disneyland is a great experience for one day if you've never been to one of their other parks.

IMHO it's a pity that the OP plans to fly from Las Vegas to San Francisco, missing out all the wonderful country in between including Death Valley, US395/Owens Valley and the Tioga Pass. But it's the OP's holiday...

Yes it is.......and it may be his first but it probably won't be his last Plenty of time to come back again !

As for your comments about Disneyland......... I find DL has an entirely different vibe to both the bigger WDW and similar sized DLP so I disagree that if the OP has been to Florida he shouldn't bother with the Ca parks.

Bodders11

Thanks to all for the suggestions.


We will have a list of absolute must dos, things we would like to do and things that would be nice to do if we have spare time (unlikely). I'm never going to see and do it all so I'd rather not be too frantic about it and enjoy the holiday.


The plan was to drive to San Diego which would serve as the final stop but the flights are about £100 more expensive. We would still travel to SD but were looking at the cheapest flights to New York so a drive back to LA, although I hadn't considered other smaller airports.


I want to spend some time at Santa Monica and I think we will spend a day at Universal Studios as our one theme park for the holiday. Also want to spend an afternoon in Hollywood/Beverley Hills and possibly tour the celebrities homes, but time in Los Angeles will be limited.


The rationale for flying to San Fran from Las Vegas is to avoid having a car for the three nights whilst there, saving more money. I really would like to do Death Valley but I can't do it all. We are looking at Airbnb options so if free parking is offered in San Fran then driving would be an option enabling us to do Death Valley and possibly Yosemite too on the way, although this would likely be an extra two-three days but would mean we wouldn't have to do/find another national park to visit during the remainder of the trip.


Too many choices!?!


That Virgin flight is cheap Duchy, I hadn't come across that one. I am sure the cookies on my computer changes the price/options every time I search! Thanks for taking the time to look at that for me I am looking to book my flights on 20th April or thereabouts so hopefully prices stay around £600.00.

John259

One possible solution for San Francisco is to stay in a motel on US101 north of the Golden Gate Bridge (in Corte Madera, etc - map https://goo.gl/maps/tSY8mEKv5sw ), then use the ferry from Tiburon to get into the city and back again. You get a scenic boat ride across the Bay as a bonus (wear something warm, because it can be cold on the water).

That works well for a day trip provided you don't want to stay in the city too late into the evening. It's probably questionable though if you want several days in the city.

I've read elsewhere that you can get accommodation in the city with free parking but I've no personal experience of it.

Key money saving concepts in the USA are to stay in motels not hotels, stay outside big cities except Las Vegas, and stay outside national parks.

jackieblack

Bodders11 wrote: »

The rationale for flying to San Fran from Las Vegas is to avoid having a car for the three nights whilst there, saving more money. I really would like to do Death Valley but I can't do it all. We are looking at Airbnb options so if free parking is offered in San Fran then driving would be an option enabling us to do Death Valley and possibly Yosemite too on the way, although this would likely be an extra two-three days but would mean we wouldn't have to do/find another national park to visit during the remainder of the trip.

You could pick up a car as you leave LV and drop it off when you arrive in SF, then just pick up another car as you leave SF

duchy

I found the Santa Ana flight on sky scanner .

With regard to baggage a lot of the motels will have laundrette facilities so you could keep the baggage charges down if you are prepared to use them.... They are usually situated near the pool so I tend to swim whilst waiting for the clothes to wash and dry.

I agree with Jackie re SFO good transit so drop the car off rather than pay rental and deal with parking on the city days. Saves money and stress.

John259

Yep - look for "Guest Laundry" on the details for individual locations on motel chain web sites. Sometimes these facilities have washing powder dispenser machines but sometimes not, and obtaining small packets of washing powder in US supermarkets can be difficult.

Or you can use a coin laundry, where sometimes there are interesting conversations to be had with the other clientele, usually starting with them asking "You folks from Australia?" All the coin laundries that I've used in the USA and Canada have had washing powder dispenser machines, BTW.

blindman

MK55 wrote: »

I am planning a 30 day US trip for our honeymoon later this year. I'm going to keep my eye on this thread your last comment of trip looks amazing!!

Bodders11 wrote: »

Thanks to all for the suggestions.


We will have a list of absolute must dos, things we would like to do and things that would be nice to do if we have spare time (unlikely). I'm never going to see and do it all so I'd rather not be too frantic about it and enjoy the holiday.


The plan was to drive to San Diego which would serve as the final stop but the flights are about £100 more expensive. We would still travel to SD but were looking at the cheapest flights to New York so a drive back to LA, although I hadn't considered other smaller airports.


I want to spend some time at Santa Monica and I think we will spend a day at Universal Studios as our one theme park for the holiday. Also want to spend an afternoon in Hollywood/Beverley Hills and possibly tour the celebrities homes, but time in Los Angeles will be limited.


The rationale for flying to San Fran from Las Vegas is to avoid having a car for the three nights whilst there, saving more money. I really would like to do Death Valley but I can't do it all. We are looking at Airbnb options so if free parking is offered in San Fran then driving would be an option enabling us to do Death Valley and possibly Yosemite too on the way, although this would likely be an extra two-three days but would mean we wouldn't have to do/find another national park to visit during the remainder of the trip.


Too many choices!?!


That Virgin flight is cheap Duchy, I hadn't come across that one. I am sure the cookies on my computer changes the price/options every time I search! Thanks for taking the time to look at that for me I am looking to book my flights on 20th April or thereabouts so hopefully prices stay around £600.00.

Southwest thread

is a good source of info