Tips for a US Trip with my daughter this Summer? (Or Maybe South Africa???)

phatbear

Pre covid me and my other half done a 2 week west coast road trip.

san francisco, massively disappointing once you have walked the golden gate bridge and done alcatraz then get out, its the worst place ive ever been for homeless people with evident mental health issues, so much so we were supposed to go back last year, using SF as an arrival destination but the feedback i was getting from friends and colleagues made us cancel our trip.

Then drive to yosemite, which was breath taking beautiful and the air was so sweet you could taste it.

then monterey, once youve done the aquarium, spotted some sea otters, and a whale watching tour youve pretty much done it unless your into beaches/beach activities.

cambria, only to break a long drive to LA up, cute little pacific facing town, wish we had another couple of days there.

LA, for disney, which is probably the nicest disney ive been to although its very small but perfectly formed, also went to watch a baseball game, la angels, then all the cliche LA sites, alas another city that is struggling with a homeless issue.

onto san diego, more baseball, best food of the trip, good vibes.

considered going over the border, you can see mexico from the outlet mall down by the crossing but entry back into the US can take ages so we swerved it

for ref i have nothing but the upmost sympathy for homeless people but my other half is very nervous and their aggression at times often meant we didnt get to see as much as we could have.

tightauldgit

Sounds like the USA trip might be a goer! She seems quite keen. She's very much one for going to see things (sights, museums, galleries, whatever) so I reckon there's enough to entertain us in NY/LA/SD 

Rough itinerary that I sketched out was 

Fly into LA - probably just find a motel near the airport and crash for the night

Couple of days in and around LA - see Hollywood and the tourist stuff, get some Korean food in K-Town, go see westwood/brentwood/santa monica where I used to live

Couple of days in Anaheim - do at least one day in Disneyland (funnily enough this is the one shes not that bothered about) 

2/3 days down in San Diego - see the zoo and or Seaworld and add an extra day if I fancy making the border run to Tijuana for some proper Mexican tacos (although enugh of them in LA/SD no doubt)

Back up to LA and connect on to NY and then spend maybe 4 days or so there before heading back. If there's an extra day on the West coast probably take a drive up the PCH and see Malibu Santa Barbara etc.

First challenge to be overcome is I've just had to send off her passport to renew it so I don't know when that will come back given the strikes. They acknowledged receipt of it yesterday so fingers crossed.  

Alan_Bowen

I have been to San Diego around 15 times, I think I must have lived there in a former life and if I win the lottery, we will buy a house there. The Zoo is incredible, Sea World less so, particularly if your daughter has seen or heard of the movie 'Blackfish'. Sunday in Balboa Park is not to be missed if you are there on a Sunday but I would give Tijuana a very wide berth.

Apart from the possibility of queues not dissimilar to Dover last weekend to get back into the States, the city is a drug-infested dump where 18 year Americans go to get drunk since the US age to drink is 21. If you want to see what it looks like, drive to the end of I5 and turn right into the Outlet Centre. You can see the smog rising above the fence on the other side...

On your route down to SD from LA, you could do worse than take a trip out to Catalina for the day, hard to believe you are only 22 miles from LA, but I also like the area around Newport Beach if you want to stop for a rest and have lunch at Rubys at the end of the pier

brianposter

We did three weeks in South Afica last year for £1500 per person including flights. Hired a car and visited Kruger NP.

You need to be aware of "load sharing" (power cuts) and choose your accomodation and car hirer carefully.

ellenvan

Agree with the comments on Tijuana (avoid) . We found nowhere clean enough to eat, just grungy!
Teens disliked to much driving on our trip , loved Grand Canyon, Sedona and San Diego.
We had done disney in Florida so just used LA for airport. We had car pick up in LV and drop off in LA to avoid too much driving.

tightauldgit

ellenvan said:

Agree with the comments on Tijuana (avoid) . We found nowhere clean enough to eat, just grungy!
Teens disliked to much driving on our trip , loved Grand Canyon, Sedona and San Diego.
We had done disney in Florida so just used LA for airport. We had car pick up in LV and drop off in LA to avoid too much driving.

yeah my one isn't a fan of driving so trying to keep car journeys as much as possible sub 2 hours (to the extent you can with traffic etc) I guess the one good thing with West Coast is that there's generally somewhere with stopping to see within a couple of hours even if it's just to break up a longer trip. 

Yeah I haven't decided on Tijuana - if we did do it then I think the plan would be to drive to the border and cross on foot (which I think saves a lot of queueing) and then just have a poke around for a few hours, have some lunch and then head back. Certainly don't think we'd stay overnight. I know it is a pretty scuzzy nightlife spot for Yank tourists but I was kind of thinking that if we avoided the night time then it wouldn't be as bad. 

tightauldgit

tightauldgit said:

Sounds like the USA trip might be a goer! She seems quite keen. She's very much one for going to see things (sights, museums, galleries, whatever) so I reckon there's enough to entertain us in NY/LA/SD 

Rough itinerary that I sketched out was 

Fly into LA - probably just find a motel near the airport and crash for the night

Couple of days in and around LA - see Hollywood and the tourist stuff, get some Korean food in K-Town, go see westwood/brentwood/santa monica where I used to live

Couple of days in Anaheim - do at least one day in Disneyland (funnily enough this is the one shes not that bothered about) 

2/3 days down in San Diego - see the zoo and or Seaworld and add an extra day if I fancy making the border run to Tijuana for some proper Mexican tacos (although enugh of them in LA/SD no doubt)

Back up to LA and connect on to NY and then spend maybe 4 days or so there before heading back. If there's an extra day on the West coast probably take a drive up the PCH and see Malibu Santa Barbara etc.

First challenge to be overcome is I've just had to send off her passport to renew it so I don't know when that will come back given the strikes. They acknowledged receipt of it yesterday so fingers crossed.  

Passport has arrived so serious planning (and booking) is about to begin! 

turnitround

I love Vegas but def would not do it with a 12 year old. Think she would be bored senseless. What about Florida but not just for the theme parks. The drive right down to Key West is amazing.

zagubov

If she doesn't like driving, some cities have good public transport; I'd suggest combining NY with either SF or SD but maybe include New Orleans.
Looks completely different from everywhere else in the USA.

Spendless

I'd look at what you intend doing at each place to see if it would suit your 12yo. When me and DH went to Palm Springs in January a lot of the bars said they didn't allow under 21s to sit in their premises, not even outside with a diet coke. We were very glad we hadn't fetched our 19yo with us.