1 month holiday advice please

henderson1977

Hi all

My partner and I have booked the month of May 2008 as holiday and we're trying to put together a holiday plan. Our budget is moderate and we not too keen on backpacking. We were originally planning to travel Europe by rail but couldn't agree on a route and we're tempted by Oz, Asia and South America but we're now pretty much set on travelling USA. We've never been to USA before so need some guidance. One suggestion has been to:

1) fly to New York (4-5 days)
2) fly to California --> hire car and drive around California's hotspots (Los Angeles & San Francisco) --> drive/fly to Las Vegas & see Grand Canyon (2 weeks)
3) fly to Florida (1 week)


Is this realistic? Are we trying to do too much or achieve too little? Any advice on the proposed places above? Have we missed any obvious hotspots?

Thanks in advance.
Scott

Voyager2002

I think you are trying to do far too much.

I suggest you think again about Europe: if your budget is "moderate" then Eastern Europe offers great value. Plus, intercontinental flights, adjusting to new time zones and recovering from the exhaustion of a long journey can really eat into your holiday time. Europe is so close that this would not really be an issue.

As for agreeing on a route, there is a lot to be said for being spontaneous. A train pass gives you the freedom to go anywhere on the spur of the moment, and would be a good idea for Western europe, but basic train fares in the east are so low that you can just buy tickets and go on the spur of the moment.

GordonF

I had a very enjoyable two weeks driving from LA up to Seattle. There are a large number of national parks to visit along the way and the scenery is stunning. My favourites were Yosemite and Redwood National Parks. I also visited San Francisco, which along with New York is the best city to visit in the US. Mount St Helens in Oregon was good too. If I'd had the money I would have gone east from Seattle into Montana through the Rocky Mountains and then headed south into the desert states and the Grand Canyon, Arches National Park, Las Vegas and anywhere else that took my fancy.

I also went to Florida and it was interesting in places but not nearly as stunning as the west coast. The Everglades were cool as were parts of Miami, and Disneyland/world (I can't remember the difference) and Universal Studios were fun, but you can do that in California too.

New York is definitely worth a visit, but personally I wasn't very impressed with any other US city I've visited (Boston, Washington, Atlanta, Dallas, New Orleans) although there are redeeming parts of them all except Dallas.

I hope this is of some use.

Gordon

hook

i agree with voyager2002 maybe you should think europe im not sure what you mean by backpacking. the hotels in easern europe are cheap the most we paid was for a room in hungary £35 but it was worth it on the cheaper scale we paid £8 for a room in poland there is so much to see and do in europe. im not sure about trains though i prefer to take the car and go whereever and whenever i want. but i do know transport in eastern europe is dirt cheap.we did over a month last year we dont have much cash so we had a tent for germany and austria but it broke so we had to use hotels in eastern europe and the price of a room in eastern europe was near the same as the camping.

henderson1977

Thanks all for your replies and suggestions, much appreciated!

As you can imagine, we are taking advice from different sources and change our plans slightly as time goes by.

We're pretty set on visiting USA, but have reduced our time to 2.5 weeks and plan to fly to New York for 4 nights then fly to Florida for 1.5-2 weeks. But, considering costs/weather/etc, we are not sure whether it's better to go in May or September/October.

What are your suggestions please?

Thanks
Scott

cannyscot_2

I think pricewise you might now be better going Sept/OCt. But good cheap new york fligts < than £250 do come up at shortish notice ie 2-3 months away so if you kept an eye out on here and on hotukdeals and got a cheap flight to NY you could get an internal flight to florida. Flights to Florida book up from the Uk masses in advance so for May I think you will get high prices. Sept/Oct -out of schooltime you will have more chance.

Weather wise I think both months will be good. Early Oct better than late.

henderson1977

Hi all

We're too excited to wait until Oct/Nov so we're set on flying to NY (£550 each) on 1-May for 5 nights then fly to Miami for 3 nights. With the remaining 10 days, we plan to hire a car and drive to Key West and The Everglades before visiting the Kennedy Space Center & flying home from Orlando. We're not quite sure whether we're not giving ourselves enough time to visit and enjoy these places or where to stay and for how long in each place.

Any suggestions would be very welcome.

Thanks
Scott