Road Tripping in the USA!

I'll be keeping my eye out!

Looks like it's definitely going to be Vegas first from ~8-11 April so got as much or as little time to fill after that to take us up to 23 April at the latest.

Now to fight with my gf's friends' logic that they need to book everything ASAP so they can pay it off :rolleyes: Hurray for people who have no money except for the first 7 days after pay day...
 
As covered by Fox above, don't worry about booking for a while yet.

Just on a side note, I assume Thomas Cook do the 787 out there? If not, from my personal experience, I wouldn't touch them (horrible leg room)
 
shrek2 said:
Right so I'm going in Mid October October. Wuld the going to sun road in Glacier still be open?
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We were just there this past weekend and they were expecting a very short season this year. Is still closed from Lake McDonald to Lake St. Mary and will not be open until July.

Apparently there's still 50+ foot of snow in Logan's Pass/Crystal Point (from the Park Ranger at the entrance of the park*).





*YMMV; pinch of salt; etc...
 
Rich_L said:
Fly into SFO, couple days in SF. Spend 3-4 days driving PCH south to LA (Carmel/Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara), a day in Santa Monica/Hollywood then out to Vegas for the rest. If you only have a week then do the best part :p (and stop in SB for a beer with me :p )
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Cheers, will take a look :)
 
Anybody know any reliable sites for finding out the open/closed state of the Tioga Pass? The National Parks Service's website leaves the date of opening blank (which presumably means not open) so obviously it's opening unusually late this year. However apparently it did open on May 18th or 19th before closing again a few days later.

Not going to be driving it for 3 more weeks thankfully so hopefully it should be comfortably open by then. Don't fancy the 5 hour diversion between Yosemite Valley and Mammoth Lakes otherwise :p
 
Any of you regular Vegas guy know which of the buffet is the one to hit currently. It's been four years since we went and the in laws are hitting Vegas in a weeks time and want the best current buffet!

edit : We hit the Bacchanal Buffet, which was amazing.
 
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Redgie said:
Anybody know any reliable sites for finding out the open/closed state of the Tioga Pass? The National Parks Service's website leaves the date of opening blank (which presumably means not open) so obviously it's opening unusually late this year. However apparently it did open on May 18th or 19th before closing again a few days later.

Not going to be driving it for 3 more weeks thankfully so hopefully it should be comfortably open by then. Don't fancy the 5 hour diversion between Yosemite Valley and Mammoth Lakes otherwise :p
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http://www.monolake.org/today/roads - I found this site pretty good. Links to the major passes which links direct to Caltrans current road statuses which is upto date.
 
Just back from the USA this afternoon after an epic trip taking in Highway 1 as well as a short stop in New York at the beginning and Vegas at the end.

The Pacific Coast Highway is nothing short of breathtaking. You can literally stop every 5-10 minutes, around every bend is an amazing vista and photo opportunity. One piece of advice, is don't rush it - we did it in 5 days, starting on a Friday and finishing in LA on the Tuesday. We drove to Vegas on the Wednesday, which, whilst I expected to be a very boring drive was actually quite good going through the mountains. At some points I think I-15 goes up to ~5000ft on the drive through!

One of the biggest downsides was after booking a Mustang or similar, we arrived at the rental lot in SFO and the place was empty. We waited for around an hour and a half for *any* convertible to come in, and ended up with a Chevy Camaro. About 290bhp in a V6 IIRC, so decent poke but other than that a pretty basic vehicle. You can see why the starting price on them is so low. :p
 
Just about to book car hire for collection and return to LAX, but I have a couple of quick queries. There are 4 of us, so I'm going to book two convertible Mustangs.

We land at LAX 3pm on Sat 17th Sept and depart at 4pm Mon 3rd Oct.

We have no intention at this stage of spending a lot of time in LA, so the idea is to limit it to the following:

17th: Half day LA
18th: LA
19th: Drive to San Diego - Collect cars at 11am

3rd: Arrive back at LA - Return cars at 11am

I'm toying with the idea of actually arriving back at LA on the 2nd, to add a final day in, but I'm not sure what we'll actually get up to.

The crux of my dilemma is public transport in LA, what is it really like? Should we collect the cars when we leave LA to drive to San Diego, or as soon as we arrive at LAX and use the cars to drive around the city?

Alamo UK is £510 per car and Virgin Car Hire using Alamo is £460. Think I'll be going with the latter unless direct through Alamo offers any specific advantages?
 
Two things:

- you need a car in LA. Public transport is minimal.

- If you book through Alamo UK you can collect quidco cashback, which could be £60-£70 on that value.
 
Uber is a pretty good way to get around if you're going to be out drinking (or even just going out for a meal, it's nice not to have to worry).

The response times for Uber in San Fran are ridiculous - I got one in <10 seconds once as the guy happened to be dropping someone off opposite!
 
Joe T said:
Two things:

- you need a car in LA. Public transport is minimal.

- If you book through Alamo UK you can collect quidco cashback, which could be £60-£70 on that value.
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What about Uber?

That sounds like we need to collect to collect the cars when we arrive and drop them off on the day we fly back. Something like this:

17th: Arrive at LAX - collect cars at 4pm
18th: LA
19th: San Diego

3rd: Arrive back at LAX - return cars before 4pm (probably around 2pm)

Alamo direct comes in at £628.41, £565.57 after cashback.

Virgin Car Hire comes in at £569.84.
 
Yes you could try Uber. Not tried it myself though.

I wouldn't be without a car in a city like LA. It's also often simplest to collect rental cars from airports as they are set-up well to do this, and there's usually a decent amount of choice.
 
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