Californian Roadtrip HUUUR

Amp34 · 10 Mar 2015 at 11:58

Peerzy said:
It was easily the best holiday we've ever had.

Flights were roughly £550 each, then I averaged about £70 per night for hotels over 21 nights. Car was £700, food and drink was probably £50-£60 per day on average. It included about £500 of shopping, show tickets in Vegas etc......

Personally for £3k I thought it was good value for money. People happily spend £2k for 2 weeks all inclusive somewhere like Egypt with Easyjet flights.

Don't get me wrong, £3k for a 3 week trip is fine, that's around my price point too. It just seemed for that kind of trip £3k seemed a lot, and looking at your breakdown it makes sense now how it cost that much (food/drink costs and shopping).

Usually with my trips he main cost is flights and other forms of transport.

Peerzy · 10 Mar 2015 at 12:06

Amp34 said:
It just seemed for that kind of trip £3k seemed a lot,(

If I was to go through a list of things we did / saw / experienced then £3k is a great price! If I could un-see everything, and go back and it cost me £5k I'd still be happy!

howler · 10 Mar 2015 at 12:14

Heading to the USA in April, can't wait

Doing NYC, Vegas, Yosemite and San Fran

Sadly going from Vegas to Yosemite I think the Tioga pass will be closed, anyone got any suggestions to make that journey more interesting going via Fresno etc or am I stuck with the freeway?

Tunney · 10 Mar 2015 at 12:19

[TW]Fox;27751382 said:
We did California in the Mustang Convertible – it’s really not a very good car (Cheap interior, crap gearbox, limited luggage space)

It's also a great way to mark yourself out as a tourist to every thief in California.

Amp34 · 10 Mar 2015 at 12:20

Peerzy said:
If I was to go through a list of things we did / saw / experienced then £3k is a great price! If I could un-see everything, and go back and it cost me £5k I'd still be happy!

I think you're misunderstanding my point. Once you take out the shopping and spending £60 a day on food and drink it becomes a trip far closer to what I'd expect to pay for 3 weeks on the west coast. My feeling is most would pay around £2-2.2k for a 3 week west coast trip.

But then, I go on a lot of trips and to afford them I cut back on things like food and accommodation (I'd camp much of a west coast trip) and spend it on getting to places and seeing things, not that that makes my yearly holiday bill much lower... Just different ways of having holidays.

[TW]Fox · 10 Mar 2015 at 12:27

Tunney said:
I agree with what's been said. Make sure you do Highway 1 north to south so that you're driving on the ocean side of the road. Also, I always try to avoid flying in/out of LAX. The flights there can be pretty cheap but it's a terrible airport.

LAX does absolutely suck I agree but the savings are often significant and they have the largest rental facilities in the US so it's well worth starting/finishing there.

Amp34 said:
That seems really expensive for what it is? I guess the hotels were a significant chunk of that though?

It depends on the emphasis you put on decent restaurants and city centre hotels. We are less bothered about both of those things (I prefer a decent hotel a bit further out) and therefore the cost can be less - our California trip was £1500 PP for 16 days inc Mustang hire.

On my last trip (New England last year) our average food spend was exactly half Peerzys

TrixiBuG said:
Check out RentalCars.com

They have Alamo, Dollar, National etc on their books and the rates include ALL insurance with nothing to pay when you get there.

As long as you return the car to a depot within California, Nevada or Arizona then there are no one way charges (check your T&C's tho)

For a full size 5 door car for the dates you were looking at Kol, its working out at £350. Get a premium package to include your additional drivers and first tank of fuel (well worth it if you want an extra driver) for £410 ish

They used to be great but over the last few years I never find them competitive anymore. For 3 weeks in September for example they want over £800 for a Luxury, Virgin Holidays through the same supplier with the same fully inclusive deal is just over £600..

TrixiBuG · 10 Mar 2015 at 12:37

[TW]Fox;27752110 said:
They used to be great but over the last few years I never find them competitive anymore. For 3 weeks in September for example they want over £800 for a Luxury, Virgin Holidays through the same supplier with the same fully inclusive deal is just over £600..

Its totally because I dont work there any more

Yeah, its a very active market now. Virgin didnt used to do car hire, but now that they do its meant that the brokers are getting squeezed out of the market a little

Amp34 · 10 Mar 2015 at 12:38

[TW]Fox;27752110 said:
It depends on the emphasis you put on decent restaurants and city centre hotels. We are less bothered about both of those things (I prefer a decent hotel a bit further out) and therefore the cost can be less - our California trip was £1500 PP for 16 days inc Mustang hire.

On my last trip (New England last year) our average food spend was exactly half Peerzys

Good to see I'm not going mad on my estimations!

Having said that I spent more than Peerzys on my 3 week west coast of Australia trip last year, although much of that was flights (£950pp) and car hire/insurance (~£2k iirc - 4x4 camper van). The car saved significantly on accommodation though, lots of nights paying nothing. Costs can definitely add up.

wez130 · 10 Mar 2015 at 15:04

I'm warming to the idea of this road trip next year instead on the European one i was planning. What would be the best time of year to do this? And what kind of car would be best to hire? I'd like a convertible but i guess space might be an issue? And reading fox's point about the Mustang being cheap and plastic has put me off that idea, would a Caddy CTS or ATS be ok or too big?

Thx

[TW]Fox · 10 Mar 2015 at 15:21

June or September for the best combination of weather and decent air fares.

Good luck finding a CTS (irrespective of what the rental websites claim). The current CTS is A very very good car and I have tried for 2 years running to get one but they are very rare on rental fleets. Both times I have ended up with an ATS instead which to be fair is an excellent car. It is BMW 3 series sized so its just about big enough for 2 and luggage

wez130 · 10 Mar 2015 at 16:07

I was considering September as it'd be out of our work season (just), and i'd have 9 months to save up about £6k for it. I'm in NZ/ Sydney / Dubai from end of Nov '15 till January next year. CTS was just one of the options on the car rental site linked above.

Andybtsn · 10 Mar 2015 at 16:25

wez130 said:
I'm warming to the idea of this road trip next year instead on the European one i was planning. What would be the best time of year to do this? And what kind of car would be best to hire? I'd like a convertible but i guess space might be an issue? And reading fox's point about the Mustang being cheap and plastic has put me off that idea, would a Caddy CTS or ATS be ok or too big?

Thx

We had a Chevrolet Impala, looks a boring car but it was very powerful. Mainly got it as there were two adults and a kid and there for three weeks so you can imagine how much luggage we had, pretty much all went in the boot.

Here is my thread for when we did the trip although we are a bit different having a kid with us and also not doing Vegas as we had done it a year before!

Really want to do it again but it would be with 2 kids this time

opstrat · 10 Mar 2015 at 16:33

a couple of people mentioned flight prices. is this one way or return.

im looking for flights to that area but with my work i only get the glasgow fair off which is the 18th of july onwards. prices are roughly £800 return.

Kol · 10 Mar 2015 at 17:15

Our flights (with US Air [now AA]) for the 28th May > 12th June were £490 from London. I did the same flight in November 2013 and was fine. Didn't expect Glasgow to be that much more.

Thanks for everyone's help. I'm going to book a car this evening off the back of this. Any recommends for the car I should be going for if you think a convertible isn't the best idea?

B@Th*nG · 10 Mar 2015 at 17:17

ahhh San Diego, discovered by the Germans in 1904. It of course in German means ‘a whale’s vagina.'

B@

Arsonist · 10 Mar 2015 at 17:51

I did sort of this route a few years back. Got a train from NY to various places across mainland, and then hired a car in San Fran. Drove down the coast to Santa Barbra, then into LA, then to Williams for that big canyon thing, then onto Vegas where we flew out. A month of much beer, many pancake breakfasts, and some truly nasty strippers.

Places you must go - Santa Barbra, it was simply stunning, as we stayed in a mod-con yurt in the mountains on a huge private medicinal marijuana estate.

LA sucked, honestly. Don't spend more than 2 days here. Also don't go to McDonalds in Compton. It was really scary.

Williams was lovely, as staying here allowed us to drive into the canyon itself, to the river (required 1337 driving skills). Temperature got up to 43 degrees in there when up top it was only 32. The swim in the river was something I will never forget.

VEGAS BABY!!!!! Enough said.

Hope that helps.

[TW]Fox · 10 Mar 2015 at 18:07

wez130 said:
I was considering September as it'd be out of our work season (just), and i'd have 9 months to save up about £6k for it. I'm in NZ/ Sydney / Dubai from end of Nov '15 till January next year. CTS was just one of the options on the car rental site linked above.

It's just a placeholder for the sort of car you get - it doesn't mean you get a CTS. You might, they are out there in fleets in the LCAR category, but from my experience you are more likely to get something like a Cadillac ATS or a Lincoln MKZ or similar.

Whether it says CTS, ATS, whatever, its the same class - LCAR.

Andybtsn said:
We had a Chevrolet Impala, looks a boring car but it was very powerful.

Careful with these. The Impala has been around for years and years and is ancient and dated. So Chevrolet brought out an all-new model a few years ago. Excellent - and the new Impala is a fantastic car and a very good rental choice.

But... Chevrolet kept making the old model to sell to fleets (Police, car rental). So they are still around and are classified as Fullsize (FCAR). The rental firms have classified the proper Impala as a Premium (PCAR).

Therefore if you have a Fullsize reservation then the Impala is about the worst car on the lot, sadly.

opstrat said:
a couple of people mentioned flight prices. is this one way or return.

im looking for flights to that area but with my work i only get the glasgow fair off which is the 18th of july onwards. prices are roughly £800 return.

They are return. But July and August are the most expensive months to travel, you will find it very difficult to get much better than £800 and you won't get near the prices quoted elsewhere in this thread, sadly.

[TW]Fox · 10 Mar 2015 at 18:09

Kol said:
Thanks for everyone's help. I'm going to book a car this evening off the back of this. Any recommends for the car I should be going for if you think a convertible isn't the best idea?

Book the convertible. It's just the right car for your first California road trip and it becomes part of the holiday and makes all the photos look good. It's a novelty thing, the novelty wears off so you'll probably pick something different next time but despite the fact I'd never rent a Mustang again I'm glad I did it the first time.

Just take those soft roll along holdall type bags as you'll want to be able to fit all your luggage in with the roof down.

Ahleckz · 10 Mar 2015 at 19:39

Would it be possible to do a California and Las Vegas road trip in November? Or would it be too cold?

Mainly interested in San Diego, San Fransisco, Napa Valley & Las Vegas.

[TW]Fox · 10 Mar 2015 at 19:51

Ahleckz said:
Would it be possible to do a California and Las Vegas road trip in November? Or would it be too cold?

Mainly interested in San Diego, San Fransisco, Napa Valley & Las Vegas.

It would be absolutely fine unless you wanted to take in Yosemite or other high mountain parts where you'll find mountain passes closed. You'll get good deals on flights in November, too.

It won't be searing hot but it won't be crap like England in November either.