Road Tripping in the USA!

[TW]Fox;29786392 said:
The convertible thing is fun once. It makes good holiday photos and it's cool to say you've driven a Mustang Cab down the Pacfic Coast Highway. I did it once, ticked the box and wouldn't rent one again - when the novelty wears off you'll find them fairly crap cars, they are very over-hyped. I now just rent Luxury each time because when covering big miles it's nice to have something well equipped and refined so you don't finish each day thinking you've been driving all day.

For a first trip though it's fun to do the Mustang thing.
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So to hopefully prove my point, in this situation for kaktus would you pick a Mustang (all things considered, I know how much you hate them in general)?
 
[TW]Fox;29786392 said:
Correct - the MKZ is a Luxury, as is the ATS. The Luxury class is a bit of a mess - it contains both traditionally full-size luxury cars and also smaller but more 'posh' cars. You also sometimes get allocated Premium Elite cars as well such as the BMW 3 Series.

There is usually a choice between cars in the Luxury category but not exactly huge.

The ATS is an excellent car and the only car I'd pick over it in this class is a CTS or an XTS (Both of which highlight how random Luxury is given all 3 of these cars are included in it, though the last two are comparatively rare).

Something fullsize - Chevrolet Malibu kinda thing. Perhaps the old model Impala which they still make and is total crap.

The convertible thing is fun once. It makes good holiday photos and it's cool to say you've driven a Mustang Cab down the Pacfic Coast Highway. I did it once, ticked the box and wouldn't rent one again - when the novelty wears off you'll find them fairly crap cars, they are very over-hyped. I now just rent Luxury each time because when covering big miles it's nice to have something well equipped and refined so you don't finish each day thinking you've been driving all day.

For a first trip though it's fun to do the Mustang thing.
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Thanks Fox - very helpful! I'd be lying if I said I wasn't still more tempted by the luxury category (I prefer quieter, more comfortable rides and so does my wife) but in this instance I think you're probably right though neither of us are particularly gung-ho about convertibles so will try to land a Camaro if I can.
 
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San Francisco Hotel

As has been recommended in this thread to stay outside San Fran somewhere like Foster City, however prices are coming in at ~£200 a night for 18th - 21st September.

Can anyone recommend anywhere to stay in or near San Francisco?
 
I'm in the process of planning my California road trip and I would appreciate any advice that you guys have got. We are planning to go end of May/June have got 3 weeks to play with and will likely be flying out on a Saturday. My wife also wants to do a lay over in NYC at the end of the holiday. I have allocated 3 nights to this to give us two full days.

Were going to hire a Mustang so that is sorted, just need to find the cheapest place, but most are coming up at the same price. Any recommendations on company here would be great.


Day 1: LA (Fly in) Saturday
Day 2-3: San Diego
Day 4-7: Vegas
Day 8: Death Valley
Day 9: Yosemite
Day 10: Yosemite
Day 11-13: San Fran
Day 14: PCH
Day 15: PCH/LA
Day 16: LA (fly to NY)
Day 17-19 NYC

As you can see I potentially have a couple of days wiggle room to play with, I'm happy to take any suggestions of where to put them, though it may ultimately come back to budget (£4k).

We have a rough idea with what we want in Vegas but everything else is pretty much open.

Out of the budget so far:
Flights ~£1300 (United any good? BA/Virgin are almost £300 more) LHR > LAX, EWR > LHR
Lights ~ £450 LAX > JFK
Car Hire ~£600 (£36 a day)
Insurance ~£50ish

So were are at £2300 before booking any hotels. Hotel wise, happy to take any recommendations.

EDIT: need to take flight costs with a pinch of salt, switched from Kayak to Expedia and gave cheaper prices, though they don't far far enough in advance yet.
 
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b0rn2sk8 said:
I'm in the process of planning my California road trip and I would appreciate any advice that you guys have got. We are planning to go end of May/June have got 3 weeks to play with and will likely be flying out on a Saturday. My wife also wants to do a lay over in NYC at the end of the holiday. I have allocated 3 nights to this to give us two full days.

Were going to hire a Mustang so that is sorted, just need to find the cheapest place, but most are coming up at the same price. Any recommendations on company here would be great.


Day 1: LA (Fly in) Saturday
Day 2-3: San Diego
Day 4-7: Vegas
Day 8: Death Valley
Day 9: Yosemite
Day 10: Yosemite
Day 11-13: San Fran
Day 14: PCH
Day 15: PCH/LA
Day 16: LA (fly to NY)
Day 17-19 NYC

As you can see I potentially have a couple of days wiggle room to play with, I'm happy to take any suggestions of where to put them, though it may ultimately come back to budget (£4k).

We have a rough idea with what we want in Vegas but everything else is pretty much open.

Out of the budget so far:
Flights ~£1300 (United any good? BA/Virgin are almost £300 more) LHR > LAX, EWR > LHR
Lights ~ £450 LAX > JFK
Car Hire ~£600 (£36 a day)
Insurance ~£50ish

So were are at £2300 before booking any hotels. Hotel wise, happy to take any recommendations.

EDIT: need to take flight costs with a pinch of salt, switched from Kayak to Expedia and gave cheaper prices, though they don't far far enough in advance yet.
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United is okay, no free alcoholic drinks in Economy / Economy Plus. That said if you want extra leg room United is cheap to upgrade at around USD 125 each way just for a seat with more legroom (I.e. economy to economy plus). Car hire at that time of year should be okay, no matter when I look at Vegas hire car prices the cost of a hire car is expensive IMHO your better to try getting a PCAR than a convert.
 
rossk26 said:
San Francisco Hotel

As has been recommended in this thread to stay outside San Fran somewhere like Foster City, however prices are coming in at ~£200 a night for 18th - 21st September.

Can anyone recommend anywhere to stay in or near San Francisco?
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We stayed in the Holiday Inn Express on Fishermans Wharf, good location and has underground valet parking.

It's coming back at $303 a night though :eek:
 
I'm currently researching the Historic Route 66, would love to do it but gotta make sure dates and holidays are tied in before even looking at prices sigh..
 
rossk26 said:
San Francisco Hotel

As has been recommended in this thread to stay outside San Fran somewhere like Foster City, however prices are coming in at ~£200 a night for 18th - 21st September.

Can anyone recommend anywhere to stay in or near San Francisco?
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We stayed here:

http://www.marinamotel.com/

Good location (Lombard street) and a nice enough place. Most importantly (for SF) it has free garaged parking!

It was ~$200 a night when we stayed (Sept 2015) which isn't bad for staying in SF itself.
 
Maundie said:
We stayed in the Holiday Inn Express on Fishermans Wharf, good location and has underground valet parking.

It's coming back at $303 a night though :eek:
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I can't find anything with good reviews <£150 a night. Not sure what's happening when I'm there, but there must be something on
 
I stayed at Da Vinci Villa in San Fran for $124/night. It was a short walk to the water front. Booked it through booking.com
 
San Francisco was nuts price wise. We ended up staying about 15 miles down the road. Whilst this sounds terrible it was quite literally a 15 minute drive into the centre of San Francisco and parking on the street was free on Sunday's so it worked really well.
 
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