Road Tripping in the USA!

Peerzy said:
Agreed, but I can't get to LV too early so need to kill time.
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Have you been to LA before? That is absolute nonsense in my experience and i have been loads of times now. LA has great bars, great restaurants, great sports venues, amazing shopping for the OH, lovely beaches, etc etc

LA is a hugely diverse city which has it all, its one of my favourite cities i have ever been to.
 
The end of your road trip is the same as ours a few days before,
17th Zion to Las Vegas hotel 165 miles
18th Las Vagas
19th Las Vegas-Lone Pine via Death Valley NP 105 miles then on to lone pine 133 miles
20th Lone Pine-Yosemite camp 356 miles book Tuesday 15th april
22nd Yosemite camp –san Francisco 191 miles
Fri 22/Aug/2014 - booked
23rd San Francisco
24th San Francisco
25th SF-Monterey 118 miles
26th Monterey-Pismo Beach 154 miles
27th Pismo Beach-Los Angeles. 180 miles fly home.

Book san francisco now as places that did not charge vast amounts for parking are filling up in august.
Las Vagas to yosemite is nearly 600 miles so you would not have any time to see death valley. We are camping a lot but still are concerned about getting places booked. Camping at grand canyon lake powel bryce canyon zion and yosemite
 
Peerzy said:
I thought 3 nights (4 days) would be enough for Yosemite and Death Valley?

Leave LV on Thursday 21st AM, arrive at Death Valley midday, stay the night.
Leave Death Valley midday on Friday 22nd, arrive at Yosemite Park in afternoon and stay night.
Stay in Yosemite Park for further night (Saturday 23rd)
Leave Yosemite Park AM and head for San Fran on Sunday 24th
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Yes thats fine, your original plan didn't mention you were staying in DV :p
 
Jez said:
Have you been to LA before? That is absolute nonsense in my experience and i have been loads of times now. LA has great bars, great restaurants, great sports venues, amazing shopping for the OH, lovely beaches, etc etc

LA is a hugely diverse city which has it all, its one of my favourite cities i have ever been to.
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Never been to the USA before, I've heard many people don't like LA. I'm not sure if budgets will have much of an impact (you for example may have the budget to spend whatever in expensive restaurants and bars but we will have to be careful).

peter said:
The end of your road trip is the same as ours a few days before,
17th Zion to Las Vegas hotel 165 miles
18th Las Vagas
19th Las Vegas-Lone Pine via Death Valley NP 105 miles then on to lone pine 133 miles
20th Lone Pine-Yosemite camp 356 miles book Tuesday 15th april
22nd Yosemite camp –san Francisco 191 miles
Fri 22/Aug/2014 - booked
23rd San Francisco
24th San Francisco
25th SF-Monterey 118 miles
26th Monterey-Pismo Beach 154 miles
27th Pismo Beach-Los Angeles. 180 miles fly home.

Book san francisco now as places that did not charge vast amounts for parking are filling up in august.
Las Vagas to yosemite is nearly 600 miles so you would not have any time to see death valley. We are camping a lot but still are concerned about getting places booked. Camping at grand canyon lake powel bryce canyon zion and yosemite
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We won't be camping, I have put a night in LA before the flight but maybe I could lose this (and drive straight to LAX off of the Pacific Highway) and then gain another night going between VL and SF.

I've budgeted £100 per night for 21 nights, however LV will be about half this, and places like SF and LA appear to be just over this.

[TW]Fox;25758137 said:
Yes thats fine, your original plan didn't mention you were staying in DV :p
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Sorry, I just had DV mashed in with Yosemite National Park under the whole trip from LV to SF.
 
Personally LA is the worst US city I have ever visited. Some people like it, some don't. Personally I didn't. Bits of the outskirts are nice, the CBD is just totally soulless, the traffic is horrendous and it's nothing like as pleasant as many other parts of California are.

It's got an airport thats cheap to fly to compared to the rest of CA, big car rental facilities and some nice hills to see on the way out. Other than that...

San Diego, San Francisco, all considerably nicer.

I suppose if i had a budget of £300,000 to stay in Beverely Hills I might think it was awesome.
 
Is there any reason to book our LA hotel near the city centre or near LAX? We will be picking up a car from LAX so I guess if we have a hotel near the airport I'll need to find and pay for parking each day. Hotels in the centre look short on parking and don't offer as much value for money.
 
I found the hotels nearer the airport cheaper anyway. I think I had a Holiday Inn literally next door to the Hertz rental lot with free parking.
 
Peerzy said:
Is there any reason to book our LA hotel near the city centre or near LAX? We will be picking up a car from LAX so I guess if we have a hotel near the airport I'll need to find and pay for parking each day. Hotels in the centre look short on parking and don't offer as much value for money.
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The centre isnt where you want to be at all (if by centre you mean downtown). You may want to venture over there for some sports, but its not too far.

You really have two ways of staying in LA, either get a cheap hotel in Inglewood near the airport, which is a total dump, and use it as a base for literally a single day, at most two, of driving around sightseeing, then leave. This will cost very little and you will get to see all the sights on a budget but of course the trade off is going back to a dump (very diverse city!).

Alternatively stay in a nice area, either up in the northwest (Santa Monica/Beverly Hills) or go south to Newport beach area. If you stay in Beverly Hills you will have a completely different experience, and i am sure that your OH will go nuts for the shopping and celeb spotting. Quite a lot of flashy metal (cars) around too which is always fun.
 
Will have to search through here as for my 40th Later on the in the year, I'm wanting to fly to San Diego and drive a muscle car across over to Vega over the space of a week...
 
peter said:
With thanks to capt Doufos and others, car booked hotels and campsites next.

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The Arizona/Utah/Nevada bit its virtually the same route we took (only in reverse and we missed out Page). If you want to know anything about that bit just ask! :)
 
[TW]Fox;25758769 said:
Fly to Los Angeles, hardly anyone flies direct to San Diego so it costs more.
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Right yeah was looking at flights and wasn't cheap. Will take a shuifty at LA, need something rapid though that I can drop off in Vegas?
 
Jez said:
The centre isnt where you want to be at all (if by centre you mean downtown). You may want to venture over there for some sports, but its not too far.

You really have two ways of staying in LA, either get a cheap hotel in Inglewood near the airport, which is a total dump, and use it as a base for literally a single day, at most two, of driving around sightseeing, then leave. This will cost very little and you will get to see all the sights on a budget but of course the trade off is going back to a dump (very diverse city!).

Alternatively stay in a nice area, either up in the northwest (Santa Monica/Beverly Hills) or go south to Newport beach area. If you stay in Beverly Hills you will have a completely different experience, and i am sure that your OH will go nuts for the shopping and celeb spotting. Quite a lot of flashy metal (cars) around too which is always fun.
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I did want to stay in Santa Monica but as we are heading off to SD as our next stop it doesn't really make sense to be north.

I think we would be happy to have a hotel near the airport as a base providing parking is easy and fine and we can then go out everyday. What are taxi fairs like if we both decide to drink one evening?
 
thanks Diesel, we are open to any advice as we only have the first night and san francisco booked at the moment. camping planned at grand canyon but after that still looking.
cheers, peter
 
My two cents on LA... I loved it there. However for doing all the touristy bits, i was on a motorbike, which allowed me to slice thru all the traffic, get to all the nice spots, and I was with someone who had previously lived in LA, so knew the best spots to go to.. Which included, Santa Monica, Angeles Crest, Downtown, Redondo Beach, Hollywood, Beverley Hills.. + lots of other parts.

Actually I rode for 12hrs straight every day for two days, and on a sports bike.. At the end of the last day, my clutch hand was killing me, but i was enjoying myself so much, that i just rode thru the pain. If you know how to ride, you can rent a nice bike for $150 a day.

I also went to a couple of bars, which had lots of atmosphere and a decent buzz about the place.

LA is like London, you can spend hrs upon hrs, sitting in traffic, at look at nothing apart from run down s-holes, or if you know where to go, hit those places hard and fast, (except in LA, it includes canyon roads, 6k ft elevation views, and blue azur skies) and if you get it right, you'll walk away with some pretty decent memories. Its' huge ! So i can understand, why some didn't get a feel for the place.
 
Hi all

I'm sure it's no doubt been asked before but this is a long thread....

I am off to Florida in May and due to hire a big van for two weeks for the whole group. I would however like to hire something sporty for a couple of days to take me and my GF on a tour.

Any recommendations on the best way to guarantee being able to hire a decent Mustang, Corvette, Camaro or similar for a couple of days?

Thank you
 
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