Road Tripping in the USA!

In Santa Barbara we stayed at the Holiday Inn. Parking, great location, room perfectly nice.

Just looked at 28th August next year and it's £145, plus the same in October (when we stayed there) :eek:

Definitely stay somewhere as nice as you're willing to afford in Santa Monica, it's the last night after all, treat yourselves.

Peerzy said:
Cheers, worth knowing.

So in LA, SD, LV and the odd small town you'd say parking is fine and to use a car to get around (instead of say public transport in LA for example).
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LV - Valet parking at the major Hotel/Casinos. Don't worry.
SD - Not as simple as vegas, but check if it has valet, Marriott did.
LA - Wasn't a problem either from what I remember. First trip we got a private room in a hostel, 2nd tiem aroud was the polar opposite with valet parking.
 
More I think about my planned California trip next year, more it seems like it's not going to be doable. I can afford it, but I suspect it's going to be at least £4k each for 3 weeks and I don't think that she'll be able to save that much in the time we have.
Going in July isn't helping, but it's the only time of the year I can get time off work.

Is £4k a pretty sensible budget?
 
£4k each? So £8k for two?

To be honest that sounds far more than sensible unless you only like staying in 5 star hotels in the centre of town and eating steak most nights after flying premium.

You could do it on £4k for two depending on the deal you get on flights!

Spending £8k sounds completely and utterly stupid if you are in a position where she'd need to save up in order to go. Thats huge money!

I paid about £3-3.5k for two for California and New York to Florida and just over £4k for the Pacific Northwest this year. I usually do just under 3 weeks and the Pacfic Northwest trip was more expensive than usual partly as a result of very expensive flights (£750 each for economy).

£8k is mental. Even if you have £8k to spend I'd still not do that, I'd rather save some and go on another trip!
 
Ahleckz said:
More I think about my planned California trip next year, more it seems like it's not going to be doable. I can afford it, but I suspect it's going to be at least £4k each for 3 weeks and I don't think that she'll be able to save that much in the time we have.
Going in July isn't helping, but it's the only time of the year I can get time off work.

Is £4k a pretty sensible budget?
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[TW]Fox;25163283 said:
£4k each? So £8k for two?

To be honest that sounds far more than sensible unless you only like staying in 5 star hotels in the centre of town and eating steak most nights after flying premium.

You could do it on £4k for two depending on the deal you get on flights!

Spending £8k sounds completely and utterly stupid if you are in a position where she'd need to save up in order to go. Thats huge money!
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£4k each sounds a lot, but I guess you could be wanting 5* hotels and first class flights.

My flights were £550~ each return, I'm looking at £50 a night on average for hotels (£1050 for 3 weeks), £650 on the car (Mustang) so that comes to £2.8k between us.

£200 for misc bits and pieces (insurance, phone sim, stuff on the flights, parking etc....) which takes us to £3k and then around £750 each for spending money so a total of £4.5k for both of us for 3 weeks in August.

Total is £2250 each for 21 nights so just over £100 a night which is the 'all in rate' I tend to pay for other holidays (2 weeks in Egypt relaxing as an all inclusive holiday at the same time would be about £1500 each).
 
Mmm, I have massively over budgeted then hah!

Flights were looking at around £900 per person (flying in July is murder). £650 on the car, £300 for fuel (this is my rough route - http://goo.gl/maps/rgwrR). Takes us to £2750.

I was budgeting a lot more than £50 a night, pretty much double that. I'm happy to stay in an Ibis/Holiday Inn type thing. Don't care about 5* hotels at all. Is that where I'm going too high? Spending money? I was factoring £75 each a day for spending money. That would take us to £5900 or so and then you've got an extra £2000 for a fancy hotel somewhere one night and a couple of nice dinners.
 
Ahleckz said:
Mmm, I have massively over budgeted then hah!

Flights were looking at around £900 per person (flying in July is murder). £650 on the car, £300 for fuel (this is my rough route - http://goo.gl/maps/rgwrR). Takes us to £2750.

I was budgeting a lot more than £50 a night, pretty much double that. I'm happy to stay in an Ibis/Holiday Inn type thing. Don't care about 5* hotels at all. Is that where I'm going too high? Spending money? I was factoring £75 each a day for spending money. That would take us to £5900 or so and then you've got an extra £2000 for a fancy hotel somewhere one night and a couple of nice dinners.
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Flights on average are around £900 each but I managed to get flights with Norwegian (who are new to the LA route) for £550 all in, they did have July dates for the same price but at a guess they've all been snapped up now. Hold out and I'm sure you'll get it cheaper than £900 though.

Average £50 a night looks like it should work out for me, I can stay in a decent hotel in Vegas for 3 nights for £117 and then spend a bit more in LA for example.

I think somewhere between £4k minimum and £6k maximum is what to aim for, it all depends on how you spend money and what sort of hotels you are happy to stay in.
 
Ahleckz said:
was factoring £75 each a day for spending money.
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What are you both going to spend £150 a day on after accomodation, fuel etc?!

You wont spend 300 quid on fuel on that route, I spent about 300 quid on fuel and drove twice as many miles.

That would take us to £5900 or so and then you've got an extra £2000 for a fancy hotel somewhere one night and a couple of nice dinners.
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An extra £2000 for a hotel 'one night' and a 'couple' of nice dinners?

What on earth?

I've been doing these trips for several years now, I've enjoyed every single one, never stay in crappy accomodation and always rent really nice cars and I honestly dont know how I'd manage to spend £8k on one. If I did I'd wonder why I wasted it all on a single trip - I could go more than twice for £8k!

£8k is what you spend when you are fabulously wealthy not when your girlfriend needs to save up and you are wondering if the trip is affordable. It's just an insane amount to blow and there is absolutely no need.

Perhaps if you spend £200 for two on a romantic meal at a high end restuarant every night but thats something rather above road tripping if you ask me.
 
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The last few posts from Peerzy and Fox sum it up perfectly.

Certainly don't be afraid to have nice meals out hee and there, but you don't always want to be eating out at posh fancy places. There are many nights where witting outside eating Fajitas whilst drining Desperados in teh sunshine (Santa Barbara) or enjoying a cheeky In n Out burger are just what you both need!

Definitely treat yourself to a nice place here and there, but economise where possible elsewhere. E.g. hit Vegas during the week, book a standard room and use the $20 trick.
 
I thought I'd done well and my Cali road trip in September cost £8k in total. £4k on flights, car and hotels plus £4k on spends for 2 weeks.
 
To be fair you did manage to spend 85 quid a day on a rental car :p The same car but with a V6 instead of a V8 is about 30 quid a day.

The rental firms must love that - the V8 is only about $5k more to buy yet they rent them out for up to 3 times the cost! My Cadillac ATS had a list price of some $10k more than a Camaro SS yet cost 30 quid a day to rent.

Just an example of where significant savings can be made, which for you probably wasn't worth it but Alekhz appears to be worried he can't afford to go in one breath but has some sort of bonkers-epic budget in the other?!
 
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Also heading over to the West Coast - June / July (flights to be booked) Cheeky visit to Hawaii also planned, I imagine 8 days.

I am thinking 16 days West Coast, 8 days Maui / Oahu.

Yet to fully price it up but as this is the honeymoon (after a short break away already to Cyprus) I imagine my budget will be pretty hefty.

I did pop into Trialfinders originally as was quoted in the region of £5-6K but that was quite high end hotels.

I will be doing the planning myself and of course with a nice car to drive around in :) I imagine the other half will want the niceties in places like LV, Maui, Oahu, San Deigo but she won't mind Holiday Inns elsewhere :)

Thanks for the info so far, a lot of reading to be done!
 
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[TW]Fox;25164419 said:
To be fair you did manage to spend 85 quid a day on a rental car :p The same car but with a V6 instead of a V8 is about 30 quid a day.

The rental firms must love that - the V8 is only about $5k more to buy yet they rent them out for up to 3 times the cost! My Cadillac ATS had a list price of some $10k more than a Camaro SS yet cost 30 quid a day to rent.

Just an example of where significant savings can be made, which for you probably wasn't worth it but Alekhz appears to be worried he can't afford to go in one breath but has some sort of bonkers-epic budget in the other?!
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I didnt think I'd done too bad on the initial booking - £550 for 9 days, and I'm sure when I was looking cars are more expensive down south than on the West Coast. I then had to pay another $440 to cover an extra day's hire ($111), 2nd driver cover ($91), breakdown ($65), uninsured driver cover ($70) and the fuel ($57). These add up pretty quick. :(. Difficult to know which are worth taking - I didnt take the medical cover as I said before.

I think we've done the muscle car thing now, and next time we'll get a SUV or something like that. This was pretty much the plan anyway: get something nicer for this short trip and something more ordinary for a longer trip (like when we do the West Coast). We did like the shove of the V8 though....:p
 
You got taken to town by the guy on the desk, why did you allow them to con you for the fuel?! You can ALWAYS refuse fuel service option and return the car full and this is always cheaper. Plus breakdown cover? It's included as standard - they are brand new cars - they flogged you the BS 'enhanced assistance' to cover you against a load of implausible stuff you can scare tourists with.

When you book from the Hertz website in the UK, thats it - everything you need is included in the prepayment. Ignore everything they say at the desk - they are on comission, they may lie to you and you need none of it.

If you didn't book from the Hertz website in the UK then the moral is... book from the Hertz website in the UK :p

Your initial booking price sounds reasonable for one of the special collection cars too :(

Personally I think the 'normal' rental sweetspot is the Luxury Sedan class. Gives you access to cars like Cadillac ATS/XTS, Infinit's, BMW 328i, Mercedes C250, etc etc and it's usually circa £30 a day. Every surface in my ATS was leather trimmed and the 280bhp turbocharged engine does 0-60 in 6 seconds flat - perfect for a rental :D
 
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Yeah I dont think I would take all the items again. I had 2nd thoughts on the fuel anyway, and nearly returned it full for a refund. They said $3.09 which looked pretty competitive - the only issue is running it down far enough to pay for it!

I wouldnt take the breakdown cover again.

2nd driver is the only thing I really needed to add (had I not cocked up the dates and needed an extra day!).
 
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