Road Tripping in the USA!

[TW]Fox;29331703 said:
That itinerary is fine for Yosemite. Leave Mammoth Lakes in the morning and you get all day driving through Yosemite and into Modesto for the evening. If you are not into hiking etc frankly it's sufficient to get a taste of what Yosemite is all about.

It is exactly the amount of time we allocated and it was more than sufficient.
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Was going to say something similar, for me it isn't long enough but then I'm an outdoors person and would much rather spend the time in the park than in Vegas. Looking at your plan Vegas is a higher priority and your schedule is very similar to that a few mates have used and they were more than happy to dip a toe in the national park, tick off s few of the major attractions and move on.
 
rossk26 said:
Is it ok to be booking all the hotels tonight? I know some people have booked hotels whilst on the trip. What's the pro/cons of both methods?
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I've done both and now settle on a mix.

Booking as you go gives you ultimate flexibility to change your mind depending on you feel. However it can also mean you spend your evenings messing around with hotel booking sites. Booking before you go gives you certainty, means no messing about once there but reduces your flexibility.

What I now do is a mix - I book everything 1-2 months before I go but leave the last week or so open.

I certainly would not advocate booking everything 6 months in advance - some hotel rates can be excessive this far out and locking your plan in (most are non refundable) with so many months of mind-changing ahead of you seems a bit foolish.

I'm going in June and have booked no hotels yet :D
 
[TW]Fox;29331703 said:
That itinerary is fine for Yosemite. Leave Mammoth Lakes in the morning and you get all day driving through Yosemite and into Modesto for the evening. If you are not into hiking etc frankly it's sufficient to get a taste of what Yosemite is all about.

It is exactly the amount of time we allocated and it was more than sufficient.
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As covered above, really does depend on what you want to do :)

I enjoyed my hike and big tree viewing , I would love to go back their again the next time I'm close :).

Regarding hotels, Fox is quite right, a balance is good. I head to Japan a month today and I still have my final week to book up :)
 
For some of the very popular tourist places it's worth booking up early. For instance, in Big Sur itself we've booked a cabin in the middle of the woods (and it's actually the most expensive night of the whole trip!) but all of the recommended places were looking like very short availability around there as well.

The other issue is that some places will require a Friday and Saturday night stay on a weekend, which is worth checking before you start looking once you're actually on your trip.
 
Thanks for tip on the hotels, is there anything that can be booked well in advance?

Only have flights booked so far. Was thinking of booking car hire tonight
 
How funny - I was just coming on to post a question about where I could rent a mustang or Camaro for a two week road trip from Seattle to San diego.

Question is, can you do that i.e. pick it up in one airport in one state and drop it off in another state? Is Alamo the best/cheapest place to get this? How much should I be looking to spend on a two week rental of the above?
 
You can do this but the one way fee from Seattle to San Diego is going to be considerable. Plus the convertible fleet in Seattle is not as large as that in California as there is much less demand.
 
rossk26 said:
Thanks for tip on the hotels, is there anything that can be booked well in advance?

Only have flights booked so far. Was thinking of booking car hire tonight
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I book car hire as soon as I have confirmed flights - there is little reason to wait as you risk your choice of class selling out if you leave it too long.
 
[TW]Fox;29332278 said:
You can do this but the one way fee from Seattle to San Diego is going to be considerable. Plus the convertible fleet in Seattle is not as large as that in California as there is much less demand.
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I just tried Alamo and I'm getting an eye watering quote: Mustang or Similar -£918 for 14 days including $495 one way fee

Even without the fee it's still considerably expensive, maybe I should forget about a mustang and get something cheaper - any other ideas for a good cruiser?
 
[TW]Fox;29332309 said:
I would rethink the route and try and leave out the one way. There are loads of epic trips that start and finish in the same place.
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We're kind of in a bind there. We're considering a permanent move to the US and we have 7 candidate cities on the list.

West Coast- San Diego, LA, San Francisco, Seattle (2 weeks)
Mid West - Chicago (2 days)
East Coast - Charlotte, Orlando (5 days)

So our route on the west coast (where we're hiring a car) kind of has to be that way. I suppose we could start in Seattle and fly to San Francisco and carry on by car to San Diego but then we'd miss much of the pacific highway drive and we'd still have a different pickup and dropoff...

Should we just hire in each city independently and then drive from SF to Seattle and back again?
 
Autoeurope is actually coming up cheaper with Alamo, than going direct with Alamo with the 10% discount.

Will this include all the cover?
 
Excellent, booked the car last night through Autoeurope.

Created hotel price alerts for some of our chosen destinations too.
 
Need to have a further read through this thread. The Missus and I are planning something similar for the first 10-14 days of our honeymoon in September.

Thus far the only plans are San Francisco, Yosemite, Death Valley, Vegas, Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon. Outside of the destinations we have no idea yet.
 
DBT85 said:
Need to have a further read through this thread. The Missus and I are planning something similar for the first 10-14 days of our honeymoon in September.

Thus far the only plans are San Francisco, Yosemite, Death Valley, Vegas, Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon. Outside of the destinations we have no idea yet.
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That completely misses out the PCH, what's even the point!! :p
 
DBT85 said:
Need to have a further read through this thread. The Missus and I are planning something similar for the first 10-14 days of our honeymoon in September.

Thus far the only plans are San Francisco, Yosemite, Death Valley, Vegas, Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon. Outside of the destinations we have no idea yet.
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rossk26 said:
That completely misses out the PCH, what's even the point!! :p
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He did say he needs to read more ;)

Fly into LAX, do what must be done in LA and drive up to SF :)
 
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