Definitely break the trip. I travelled to the U.S from Sydney in February this year and had a couple of days in L.A before doing another 5 hours to New York. I figured the cost of a hotel for a day or so was a far better option than the pain of all that flying non stop.

I wouldnt contemplate doing the whole long hual trip unless it was so important that you had to get there ASAP.

Even a day in L.A would be good.....plenty to see and do before you get to NYC.

We are flying to NYC in November, but are breaking the trip by staying three days in San Francisco on the way.

I agree with the above. I stopped over in San Fran and felt much better for it when I arrived the next day in NYC.

Both SF and LA are interesting. But I suggest you stopover in San Francisco. The airport is less daunting than LAX. Plus, you can conveniently catch the BART train from the airport right into the city.

If you stay in the city (I recommend staying at or near the Embarcadero), then you don't even need to rent a car. You will be close to public transit or can even just walk to many top sites, such as restaurants, museums, the baseball stadium, concert halls, Coit Tower, Chinatown, the downtown shopping district.

October is the BEST time to be in San Francisco in terms of weather and activities. There is so much going on: Fleet Week, classical music (world class symphony and opera), jazz, baseball, football, whale watching season. You won't be bored.

But if you do not want to lose time in California or if costs are your concern, then just continue on.

As one who has made this trip in the opposite direction (Washington D.C. to Sydney) on several occasions, I think the answer is...it depends.

If you only intend an overnight stay someplace between Sydney and NYC, I would say that it is definitely NOT worth it. Once we decided to do an overnight in L.A. to break up the trip between D.C. and Sydney. That turned out to be a big mistake because it just involved a lot more logistical problems--dealing with baggage an extra time, dealing with TSA (security) an extra time, dealing with transportation in LA from the airport to the hotel, dealing with costs of a hotel near the airport in LA, etc. We felt no more rested upon our arrival in Sydney after this layover than the times we flew from D.C. without including an overnight stay anywhere. (And it deprived us of an extra day in Sydney!)

However, if your travel plans include California anyway and you have AT LEAST 3 days for your layover, then I would stop before continuing on to NYC.

longhorn thanks, those reasons you have given are exactly why I have been tossing up whether or not to stayover.

We were going to stay in SF originally but with work only renewing contracts for 6months I decided to shorten the holiday a little to keep costs down. When I checked fares on the weekend, the airline has dropped the prices for the latter half of october - if we leave on the 11th instead of the 7th we save $800. (too good a saving to ignore) So if we have a stop it can only be for 1 night as we cant move our holidays later. I am going to allow an extra two days in NY instead so that we can take it easy the first two days and explore at leisure rather than rushing to fit everything in. We wont venture too far and if we are still tired we can go back to the hotel for a nana nap.
My husband can sleep on a barbed wire fence so he will have no trouble sleeping on a plane. As soon as he sits still for an hour he is asleep!

I've only done the straight-through run JFK-SYD & don't find it too much of a hassle.

With an evening flight out of JFK, it's pretty easy to have dinner, read etc., to LAX & then sleep on the next leg home.

Mind you, I'm a bit like your husband - could sleep on a railway track.

Unless there's a transit hotel where I can stay overnight without all the customs & immigration messing about, I'd only do a stop over if it were for a few days somewhere I particularly wanted to go.

I'm with longhorn and Bokhara (except I can't sleep for beans).

I fly from Perth to Colorado once or twice a year and I've done it both ways...straight through and breaking it up. One night really isn't worth the hassle, unless you can stay at a transit hotel IN the airport (like Changi in Singapore).

If you can avoid LAX, do it. That airport is miserable and the gatekeepers have a well deserved reputation of being harsh and unwelcoming.

I do this trip at least yearly- well from Melbourne and always go straight through.Then again I am not a smoker but I would always rather go straight to the place that is my destination.
Coming back form Ny on Qantas is good becasue you are flying thru the night.

Thank you everyone for your comments. As we could only have an overnight stop on the way over I have decided to go straight through and save the hassle of airport transfers, hotel costs etc. I have booked the extra day in New York so we can take it easy the day after the flight and just explore close to the hotel.

The trip home is fine. We will be leaving from Vegas so a quick flight to LA then Qantas through the night. I am hoping that on the layover at LAX hubby might have time to race outside, have a smoke and race back in and hopefully with no bags he could get through security a bit quicker. As I dont know what the security lines are like does anyone know if there would be sufficient time for him to do that. there would be about 2 hrs between touchdown and take off.

Once again, thank you everyone.