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

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  • gwynlas
    gwynlas Posts: 2,252 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    I have been to NY a couple of times but am very aware that if you are in Manhattan then you cannot really see anything at ground level as it is all above you. Get some guide books and let her decide if there ia anything she would really want to see  there. Similarly with California, some people love Disney but many resent the time queuing for rides and  theme rides exist in the UK. I would visit Arizona for the Grand Canyon and maybe a couple of national parks in California after a night or two in LA. Homelessness is a big issue in Arizona and S California at the moment so hard to avoid. Tipping at 20% also appears to have become the norm these days
  • Archergirl
    Archergirl Posts: 1,845 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    gwynlas said:
    I have been to NY a couple of times but am very aware that if you are in Manhattan then you cannot really see anything at ground level as it is all above you. Get some guide books and let her decide if there ia anything she would really want to see  there. Similarly with California, some people love Disney but many resent the time queuing for rides and  theme rides exist in the UK. I would visit Arizona for the Grand Canyon and maybe a couple of national parks in California after a night or two in LA. Homelessness is a big issue in Arizona and S California at the moment so hard to avoid. Tipping at 20% also appears to have become the norm these days
    Yeah had a couple of days in South Beach before a cruise, it was costing 2 of us £50 for breakfast (I think the $ is a bit better now) The taxes and gratuities are extortionate, not going back to US any time soon. 
    What does she want to do, is there nothing closer to home?  

  • hugheskevi
    hugheskevi Posts: 4,499 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    gwynlas said:
    I have been to NY a couple of times but am very aware that if you are in Manhattan then you cannot really see anything at ground level as it is all above you. Get some guide books and let her decide if there ia anything she would really want to see  there. Similarly with California, some people love Disney but many resent the time queuing for rides and  theme rides exist in the UK. I would visit Arizona for the Grand Canyon and maybe a couple of national parks in California after a night or two in LA. Homelessness is a big issue in Arizona and S California at the moment so hard to avoid. Tipping at 20% also appears to have become the norm these days
    Yeah had a couple of days in South Beach before a cruise, it was costing 2 of us £50 for breakfast (I think the $ is a bit better now) The taxes and gratuities are extortionate, not going back to US any time soon. 
    What does she want to do, is there nothing closer to home?  
    Back in September and October last year we spent 8 weeks traveling the west coast of the States. That was during the height of the Sterling / Dollar weakness. We spent £170 per day on average, covering food, accommodation, transport, and activities for both myself and my wife. With the improved Sterling rate that would now be closer to £150 per day. For that, we had a hire car, stayed in rooms at AirBnbs, and cooked our own food, shopping at Walmart.

    I agree that the USA is extortionately expensive, since we left the USA in November we have been spending around £100 per day throughout Central America, doing much better activities for the most part (although USA's National Parks are outstanding), staying in nicer places, as well as eating out for most meals.
  • Sooooo we are just back from our trip and overall had a great time. Thought I would stick down a few notes in case it helps anyone else. Also happy to answer any questions if people have them

    1. We flew with Norse and overall they were pretty good. It's a budget airline so we knew what to expect going in, and we managed to pack for a fortnight with just our personal item (a rucksack each). The flights were certainly cheaper than any other option and the overall experience was fine. Only real pain was no online check-in. To be honest LGW-LAX was slightly too long but managed to get through it, and coming back from JFK was fine. 

    2. In the end I took a gamble and booked a Budget rental car through Opodo - saved about 15% over going direct and had no issues at all. Seemed to include all the insurance coverage i needed, and no charge for one-way hire (picking up in LA and dropping off in San Diego). I hated every second of driving in the US but that's not the fault of the car hire company. 

    3. Hotel wise we stayed in mostly the lower end motel/hotel chains - Super 8, Motel 6, Howard Johnson - and every one of these had mixed reviews but overall were fine for us. Only one that I would really say was disappointing. One thing I did notice for money saving is that we booked a couple of months in advance and in California the hotel rates on the day through booking.com or whatever were generally less than we paid. So I'd suggest getting cancellable bookings and re-checking the rates and rebooking if you can save. I only managed to rememeber to do this one but saved about 15-20% doing so that time. A couple of the others I could have done had i remembered to check. In NY the opposite was true and the rates were much higher at the last minute. 

    4. One thing we did that worked well for us was that I booked my hire car not for when I landed but for the next morning. I then booked us into an airport hotel with a shuttle bus so when we landed I didn't have to stress with picking up the hire car or worrying about being late or having to drive when I was shattered and also saved a days car hire. In the morning we took the shuttle back to the airport and collected our car. 

    5. Be prepared for some shocking prices on stuff - pretty much everything you need was more expensive than here especially food. Prices do vary a lot so it pays to shop around but even then they are still high even in supermarkets and the like. Airport prices even more stupid still - $15 for a bag of M&Ms anyone? - but even in your typical Ralphs/CVS/7-11 type places around the cities a 500ml bottle of coke was $3.50 and a bag of crisps was $3 (the bigger sharing bags $5, 6 or 7 typically) and a pre-packed sandwich maybe $10+. Add on another third for NYC pricing. Restaurants, fast food, takeaways etc all expensive too. Two hot dogs and two drinks in NYC set me back $35. 

    6. We never felt unsafe or at risk at any point despite walking around a fair amount. There are lots of homeless folks and many of them seem to have more going on (addiction, mental issues, etc) but other than one guy randomly punching an advertising board on the street we never saw any issues or felt at risk. Mind you, we don't really go out after dark much so may be a different vibe at night.

    7. Just a personal thing, I'm not sure what the drug laws in the US are specifically now but almost every public place and hotel we went in Cali and NY stank of weed. Personally hate the smell and just found it annoyingly pervasive in every hotel corridor, bus, park, train etc etc.   

    8. We did football and baseball in NYC and the tickets for entry can be found pretty cheap if you look at people reselling on Ticketmaster. But the prices in the stadiums are stupid - $16.50 for a can of beer, $135 for a kids replica shirt - so I guess that's where they make their money. 

    9 We did Disneyland for a day and had a great time. Expensive but one of things you have to do once. We got a 1 day park hopper ticket with the Genie pass. And it was the guts of $200 each - my 12 year old is full adult price. We managed to get round most of what we wanted to do and could have done more but my daughter tapped out after 11 hours in the park and we went home about 7pm. I was in two minds about paying the extra for the Genie pass but I'd recommend it. Makes such a difference to not have to wait in line for 60-90 minutes for a ride if you only have one day in the park. i think if we hadn't gone for it we'd have not enjoyed the day anywhere near as much. 

    10. The US overall seemed just in general a bit more rundown and grubby than I remember it being. I guess COVID impacted a lot of businesses and investment in things. The hotels too seemed to have taken the opportunity of COVID to reduce things like shuttle buses, breakfast, etc so worth double checking these things before you book. I don't think I would rush back as there's more bang for your buck going other places but it was a good experience and my daughter seemed to enjoy herself so overall a good result.
  • hugheskevi
    hugheskevi Posts: 4,499 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    That pretty much matches my experience and views, except I thought driving in the USA was great - long, straight, fast roads with nice garages supplying cheap fuel, coffee and coca cola! In most places parking was free and easy too. I thought driving there was fantastic compared to the UK.

    It is a shame so few venture to counties such as Mexico, Belize, Guatemala or Nicaragua instead of the States, with far more sensible prices and much more interesting history. After 2 months driving around the States, entering Mexico was heaven (even if it was Ciudad Juarez!)
  • That pretty much matches my experience and views, except I thought driving in the USA was great - long, straight, fast roads with nice garages supplying cheap fuel, coffee and coca cola! In most places parking was free and easy too. I thought driving there was fantastic compared to the UK.

    It is a shame so few venture to counties such as Mexico, Belize, Guatemala or Nicaragua instead of the States, with far more sensible prices and much more interesting history. After 2 months driving around the States, entering Mexico was heaven (even if it was Ciudad Juarez!)
    I'm not a great fan of driving in cities even here but driving on the wrong side of the road, in someone else's car, with a weird automatic gearbox i'm not used to, trying to follow Google maps while also trying to interpret the US's weird 'vibes based' system of priority and right of way wasn't my idea of a nice time to be honest. I'm sure it would be better on the highways outside of the cities but LA just has too much traffic to make anything fun. Its a pity the US is soooo designed for cars and pedestrians are an afterthought. We stayed in a hotel at Newark airport one night and literally couldn't get out on foot as we were hemmed in by highways on every side. 

  • 10. The US overall seemed just in general a bit more rundown and grubby than I remember it being. I guess COVID impacted a lot of businesses and investment in things. The hotels too seemed to have taken the opportunity of COVID to reduce things like shuttle buses, breakfast, etc so worth double checking these things before you book. I don't think I would rush back as there's more bang for your buck going other places but it was a good experience and my daughter seemed to enjoy herself so overall a good result.
    That's 'Bidenomics' in effect!
  • zagfles
    zagfles Posts: 21,443 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Chutzpah Haggler
    I'm really glad I did several US road trips in the 1990's, I remember the US being cheap, friendly and clean, but heard from so many people how it's changed for the worse since then. We stayed in good motels for around $30 a night, breakfast in Denny's and similar $10 for two inc tip, theme parks inc DIsney around $20-30 entrance, top hotels in Vegas around $30 a night midweek and $50 at the weekend with all you can eat buffet dinners for $8. With none of this "resort fee" nonsense.
    A quick google on US inflation suggest $1 in 1995 is about $2 today so even accounting for inflation prices for tourist activities seem to have skyrocketted.
  • zagfles said:
    I'm really glad I did several US road trips in the 1990's, I remember the US being cheap, friendly and clean, but heard from so many people how it's changed for the worse since then. We stayed in good motels for around $30 a night, breakfast in Denny's and similar $10 for two inc tip, theme parks inc DIsney around $20-30 entrance, top hotels in Vegas around $30 a night midweek and $50 at the weekend with all you can eat buffet dinners for $8. With none of this "resort fee" nonsense.
    A quick google on US inflation suggest $1 in 1995 is about $2 today so even accounting for inflation prices for tourist activities seem to have skyrocketted.
    Yeah but also remember in the early 90s there were times when it was $2 to the £ more or less as opposed to $1.25 today. So your 1995 $1 was 50p while your 2023 $2 is £1.60. 

    I think it's the same in the UK to an extent though - things like transport, hotels and entertainment seem to have skyrockted in price relative to say a loaf of bread or a litre of milk. 
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