Road Tripping in the USA!

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If anyone finds cheap plane tickets make sure to post them up!

Please don't or this thread will just turn into a random selection of fairly useless air fares, given how much they can vary based on various factors

If you are going next year don't worry about booking flights until there is less than 6 months to go, otherwise you'll just end up overpaying.

My rule is to work out what represents a good deal and book once you find a ticket at that price or less. Excluding peak season (July/August, Christmas etc) my view on what this threshold is is as follows (for Direct flights):

Los Angeles £499
New York £400
Boston £400
Orlando £400
San Francisco £560

If the prices you are finding are around this mark, it's unlikely they'll ever get appreciably better and you should just book. If they are more than £100 more than these fares, they are expensive and I'd hold out.

 

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SF is never a good choice for a road trip start, far better deals into Los Angeles, better car rental too and the two cities a sufficiently close that it's just as easy to start from LA as it is from SFO.

 

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Good info - where are you staying? I've started a custom google map with some of those points on and other 'must see' places. There's a good interactive PDF on Colorado's tourist site which i need to have a proper look at soon. Looking at some airBnB's it looks pretty varied for what's available.. typical studio apt in the centre of Denver or foresty cabin an hour outside of a town - no idea!

Not nailed it down yet, I'm entering Colorado from Utah along the i70 and leaving again into New Mexico towards Farmington with about 7-8 nights in Colorado itself. So far its looking like Grand Junction, then 3 nights in Denver, then down to Colorado Springs then a few more nights towards the South West near Telluride etc. Be sure to check out the Million Dollar Highway, it looks absolutely excellent.

But then pretty much all of Colorado looks absolutely excellent

 

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It's only an overnight stop after a day in Arches though, GS is further away annoyingly.

 

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Two large soft holdall style bags just about fit with the roof down.

 

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We got a 2015 model which had done 8k miles so must have only been round a few weeks.

They've been in the fleet since late last year.

 

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How many days would you spend driving down the PCH? I've currently budgeted for 3 days (arriving back at LAX approx. 6pm on the last day) with two overnight stops on the way. I can see that getting pushed down to 2 days with one overnight stop if any of the rest of our trip runs over. Is it worth saving 3 days to do it or would 2 days still be enough time to enjoy it at a relaxed (ish) pace?

We did:

San Francisco to Carmel (1 night)
Carmel to Morro Bay (1 night)
Morro Bay to Los Angeles

I wouldn't have wanted to cover it any quicker than this.

 

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Great, we should be fine then!

Anyone see any problems/have any advice/hotel recommendations with this route:

• Fly into LAX
• LA (Either Hollywood area or Santa Monica probably) 2 nights
• SD (Unsure on area here) 3 nights
• LV (Staying at the A r i a) 3 nights
• Mammoth Lakes 1 night
• Yosemite Park (Camp curry) 1 night
• SF 2 nights
• Monterey 1 night
• San Luis Obispo or Pismo Beach 1 night
• Santa Barbara 1 night
• Fly home from LAX

Pretty much exactly what my itinerary was (Though we stayed either side of Yosemite rather than in it).

Worked fine but you only need 3 nights in SD if you have plans there. Otherwise 2 is more than enough.

 

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I've budgeted 3 nights in SD because my gf wants to go to the zoo and potentially sea world as well. Could trim it down to 2 nights and leave LA very early but we then wouldn't have a lot of time to explore the city.

That is exactly why we did 3 nights there too - one day for the Zoo, one for Sea World and late afternoons in San Diego.

It does seem like the stop in Mammoth might be a bit wasted because we likely won't make it there until later in the afternoon and then will want to leave early for Yosemite the next day. It does make for a shorter drive to Yosemite as opposed to somewhere like Bishop though?

We stayed in Bishop. It seemed like the right place as it wasn't THAT far from Death Valley nor that far to Yosemite the next day. It was also nice to not have to drive too far after Death Valley as it stopped us feeling time pressured and meant we got to see everything we wanted there.

The only downside of Bishop it's simply a generic small town, which is cool but don't expect to stay anywhere better than the Ramada Inn or a Super8. It's just not a nice hotel kinda place.

 

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Mammoth Lakes was a really cool place. We arrived late (having driven from Vegas through Death Valley) and went for some drinks at a ski bar place and it was really good.

The next morning we spend a few hours driving around the lakes.

It's probably only 30-40 minutes further than Bishop and will give you the option to explore and see some cool places if you want.

You have to drive past it to get to Yosemite anyway so we just visited it the next morning, I think we stopped and got lunch there.

 

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Has anyone ever rented from Budget in LAX? What are the queues like?

Rent from Avis instead if you want Budget - same firm but you can join Avis Preferred for free. This means when you arrive there is no queue as your car and documents are ready for you without visiting the counter. Budget do a similar scheme called FastBreak which I joined but they were just awful and I spent ages faffing at the desk when I used them in Seattle. Avis was a breeze.

 

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The scenic by way is on the same side as the I84 and the I84 for many miles prior is also stunningly scenic.

The highlighted route is the best.

 

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With 7-10 days only you may find San Francisco and San Diego too far apart if you want Vegas too.

Try into and out of LA and cover San Diego and Vegas

Btw, posting this from Arizona

 

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Sadly still paying $3 a gallon in the South West for premium, nothing like the prices they have where you are.

 

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Sad times, back now from 3 weeks touring mostly Utah and Colorado with a bit of Nevada, New Mexico and California too

 

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By the way, for anyone wondering about data plans for Tablets while in the US, I got 5gb for $50 from AT&T and the coverage has been immense.

I'm not sure why you'd do that given that Three roam into AT&T and you can use the UK plans in the US. I pay £15 a month and got unlimited calls and 4Gb of data in the USA for that. The coverage is the same.

I really wish I could have my beamer over here, its totally made for these roads. Stuck with a Santa Fe

You can - and you are not stuck wtih the Santa Fe. Alamo have BMW 328i's which are often offered to customers with an LCAR reservation, I turned one down only last week. You are not stuck with the Santa Fe, if you don't like it you can turn it in for something else?

 

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Maybe because you can't roam on AT&T's LTE network with Three, and Feel at Home data is seriously throttled.

Which if you wanted to download a Linux distro quickly might be an issue but for web browsing and Google maps and other things you'd do on a road trip it worked perfectly. Not sure what I'd have got for the extra £££ buying an AT&T SIM card, other than faff swapping SIM cards

 

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TLDR; couldn't find the Grand Canyon

If its any consolation even if you Sat Nav had been perfect you still wouldn't have found the Grand Canyon. The Indian Reservation is a side canyon marketed as being the real thing. The proper Grand Canyon National Park is several hundred miles away - north of Flagstaff, Arizona.

I got back a few weeks ago from 4500 miles around California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. If I remember I'll do a small writeup

 

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Every year I live in fear that I'll get the Volvo.

Every year I've dodged it but it appears this year, you got hit.

I'm so sorry

 

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Anyone ever flew with Aer Lingus?

Yes, I used them last year to fly to Boston, transferring in Dublin.

It was an excellent experience and I highly recommend them. US Pre Clearance in Dublin was particularly good.

Looking at going September next year and they do in-direct flights from NCL to LAX

Aer Lingus do not fly to LAX. The only direct flight to LAX from Dublin is with Ethiopian Airlines. The only West Coast destination Aer Lingus serve is San Francisco.

Don't book LAX flights until Aprilish at the earliest. It's a very competitive route, there is ALWAYS a sale on. I went in September and even as close as 3 weeks out from my departure dates there was a sale on and I could have got the same flights for £433 return..