Late April and May are wonderful times to travel to London and Paris. As someone said, avoid Holy Week. And avoid EuroDisney! If you are in Fresno, you can easily visit Disneyland which is so much better!

1. Get yourselves to San Francisco and fly out of there to London. You don't get to choose which airport, and you don't get to pick an arrival time. The airlines do that for you. Buy an open-jaw ticket - SF>London, Paris>SF.

2. You take the Eurostar from London to Paris. Buy tickets about 2-3 months ahead of time to get the best prices: www.eurostar.com

3. April-May is a great time to go, BUT be aware there are three holidays in France in May, which could affect your plans. No one can tell you what the weather will be like, but you can go online and get historical averages.

4. It's been awhile since I've been to London, so I won't comment about hotels there (though I have always found London generally to be expensive), but Paris is well known for having great, inexpensive accommodations (way less than NYC or even here in Washington, DC). You can certainly find a nice hotel for $200 or under. You also might consider renting an apartment in each city, which will be cheaper than a hotel (though first-timers often benefit from having hotel staff to help them out with questions/directions, etc. - in an apartment, you're totally on your own).

5. Get a good guidebook for each city, and a good map for each, and start reading and familiarizing yourself with them. Get a sense of the various neighborhoods and narrow down the areas you think you'd like to stay in.

6. You don't have to be a foodie to enjoy eating in London or Paris. They're big cosmopolitan cities with every kind of food in every conceivable price range. You don't have to spend much money to eat very, very well.

7. Please don't sully a trip to Paris with a visit to Disneyland (where is the head-banging-on-desk emoticon?). Please....it's just so wrong (especially for a couple with no kids).

If you drive to SFO then you can take a non-stop on United to London. United also has a non-stop that you could take home from Paris. Flying into one city and home from another usually does not increase ticket costs.
You can drive to SFO and spend the night in a airport hotel. There are several that let you "park and fly" if you spend the night. You can take their shuttle to the airport and leave your car at the hotel for free (or minimal cost). Some allow up to 2 weeks parking. Just google San Francisco airport hotels park and fly.

I wouldn't worry about time of day, look by pice. After you see the schedules and costs you can decide.

My SIL always has to use a travel agent. She ends up in large hotels that are not always the best location. If you plan this yourself you can get a lot of excellent advice here about good places to stay in your budget from people who have actually been there.

I would get a hard copy guide to Paris and London. I prefer Fommers, They do an excellent job describing the main sights. Streetwise brand maps are very good.

The week I would avoid is Easter week, lots of spring break activity .

You will have a fun time planning and, doing it yourself helps you learn about the cities.

Another site to search for flights would be Hipmunk http://www.hipmunk.com/ Their search engine lets you select for "Agony", i.e., a combination of cosst and length of the flight. I just looked for open jaw on random dates for next May, and the cheapest is Icelandair. We have flown them from Seattle, and they have a 45 minute plane change in Iceland, so the entire flight is only 11 hours and 15 minutes. It is pretty much a cattle car, but gets you there. Cost is listed @ $1,004. The next on their list is British Air which has a non-stop that only takes 9 hours 5 minutes, and costs $1,340.

Have fun planning!

>><i>1. Get yourselves to San Francisco and fly out of there to London. You don't get to choose which airport, and you don't get to pick an arrival time. The airlines do that for you. Buy an open-jaw ticket - SF>London, Paris>SF.</i><<

Not necessarily. I live near Sacramento and conventional wisdom says head to SFO. But I (very) often find fares are cheaper from LAX or Las Vegas . . . or even SMF believe it or not. Of course there are no non stops from SMF - but my last flight to the UK was $250 less out of SMF routing through LAX. Sure I had the extra hop SMF>LAX . . . but that was easier than driving to SFO and dealing w/ parking.

consider Allegient from FAT to LAS, driving to SMF all various combos. SFO may indeed work out best but try other options.

If you decide you want/need the help of a travel agent, several friends of mine have in the past year used AAA and been very pleased with their trips.

I didn't read every post, so please forgive me if I'm repeating advice that someone else gave, but you should check the statutory holiday schedules for the UK and France in April and May. I lived in France for a couple of years and I recall that there were a fair number of holidays in April-May. I think there are three in France in May 2014, please Easter in April. And the UK has at least one bank holiday Monday in that period as well as Easter. (And May 1 (Labour Day) used to be an actual, bottle-throwing riot in London, although I think that practice has died down a lot.)

It's not that you need to avoid stat holidays, but they may affect your travel plans. Locals (and people from neighbouring countries with the same holiday schedules) may be taking long weekends, and that can increase crowds and prices at hotels and on planes and trains etc. If you think you'll be travelling on a holiday weekend, you might want to book fairly far in advance. And the French transportation workers have exhibited a tendency to go on strike on major holidays ...

For major holidays, some venues that are must-sees on your list could be closed (or thronged), so you might want to time your visit, sightseeing schedule and shopping schedule to make sure that the places you want to see are open. (In April-May 2014, the major holiday would be Easter Weekend.)

A quick check on ITA for next spring reveals fares from FAT to LHR/CDG are virtually identical (give or take $10 - $20) to fares from LAX, with no need to drive or park or take a separate airline. Fares from SFO (on the days I looked) are around $30 less than those via LAX (or DFW, which has direct mainline service from FAT on AA) but again, gas and bridge tolls, never mind parking, will eat the difference.

Good info, janis. I didn't know that.

Hi propita,
I just checked kayak.com

Flying FAT to LHR is $1196, 13hr 15 min, with a two hour layover at LAX.

Flying SFO to LHR is $1202, 10hr 15min, plus you have to get yourself to SFO, 3 hrs from Fresno, so 3hr 15min plus the cost/time/gas to get to SFO plus parking costs.

We live two hours north of LA and have to make the drive there for every flight we take. If I had a local airport that cost the same as LAX I would jump on it.

IMO, just fly from Fresno and have a relaxing start to your trip.

I've got nothing to add that hasn't already been covered. Just wanted to say that stcirq's point 7 made my day.

Hi Prop,

>We understand hotels ....

$200/nite is about $150 euro.

In Paris, we always stay at the Hotel Bonaparte, 61 Rue Bonaparte in the 6th. From 139E dbl + bkfst. It is just around the corner from Place St. Sulpice, near 3 metro stops and 4 bus routes. Has AC and an elevator.

The staff speaks English well, and is very helpful. The front desk is staffed 24/7

They can arrange a shuttle pickup to CDG for you.

Tel 33 1 43 26 97 37
FAX 33 1 46 33 57 67
[email protected]
www.hotelbonaparte.fr

For more info, enter "Hotel Bonaparte" in the "search the forum" box.

See also http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...t-in-paris.cfm

Why are you avoiding taking a third suitcase so that you can bring the clothes suitable for lunch or dinner that has tablecloths?

We always pack one 28" and 2 carryons.

The extra suitcase is usually free on overseas flights.

Enjoy your visit.

((I))

okay, I'll weigh in a bit -- one good place to check out London hotels is www.londontown.com I've used it, they have some good deals and tons of hotels.

I think maybe you should avoid May 1st, at least, it's just a major holiday so lots will be closed.

If the person only wants to do carryon, more power to them, lots of people on Fodors do and recommend it. I don't, I just can't go there, but others do. And to be honest, you don't need much to be able to eat in a restaurant with tablecloths. I did that with one skirt on my last trip, as the tops I wore with it could be used for other things, and actually since it was summer, one dressier top took up almost no room anyway (a silk sleeveless scoopblouse). But just doing carryon doesn't mean you can't eat in a restaurant wiht a tablecloth (which isn't always that expensive, that is pretty meaningless since some cheap restaurants and brasseries can have tablecloths). But no harm would ever be done if someone didn't want to eat in a restaurant like that, actually.

As for London theater, after more is settled, you can ask on here and people can tell you the best way to get cheap tickets for that.

>>I think maybe you should avoid May 1st, at least, it's just a major holiday so lots will be closed.<<

For France yes perhaps, but certainly not correct for the UK. Our "may day" holiday will be on May 5th next year (it's always a Monday), and all tourist attractions etc will be open for business.

I was also going to suggest that you look into flying from Las Vegas or Los Angeles. We got a great deal from LAX-LHR on Air New Zealand in 2007. It was an overnight flight with pretty good food, wine (I know you said you don't drink, but we appreciated it), and a wide variety of entertainment on the individual seatback screens.

Lee Ann

The drive from Fresno is not close to either Las Vegas or Los Angeles. Minimum four hours for either one. Not the way I would want to start my trip. And then you have the driving time, extra gas, parking fees etc.

>>The drive from Fresno is not close to either Las Vegas or Los Angeles. Minimum four hours for either one. <<

I don't think anyone suggested <i>driving</i> to LAS or LAX. . There are flights from FAT to both airports.

Lots of great info.

I did great research, with help from here, for our trip to DC and NYC last year. I do have time for research, so I'll probably do this myself. But I'll get more concrete questions as time goes on.

When I priced tickets from Fresno versus from LAX or SFO, as people posted, they were pretty even when accounting for travel, gas, etc., and FAT is fairly small, so no huge problems with departures.

The hotel info is VERY helpful. The "no" on Disney is helpful, too. And, yes, a day trip to Oxford or elsewhere in the UK sounds great. We hope for a future trip to London or what we miss, and to go to at least two of the beautiful gardens in the countryside, but that MAY have to wait unless I find good tips for that.

Oh gosh, there was something else but I can't remember and this phone keypad is little!

<I don't think anyone suggested driving to LAS or LAX. There are flights from FAT to both airports.>

Is there really a lot of money to be saved by flying into LAS or LAX and then starting your trip from there? I didn't check those prices.

I thought because the OP was looking for a nonstop, that people were suggesting that she drive to LAS or LAX or SFO and start from there. My mistake, sorry.

>>Is there really a lot of money to be saved by flying into LAS or LAX and then starting your trip from there?<<

Yes - see up thread. The fares out of FAT via LAX for example are a bit lower than flying out of SFO. Since that would be HUGELY more convenient, it would be worth it even if it cost $100 or $200 more, but actually being cheaper -- a no brainer.

BTW I found the same flying out of SMF - less expensive than SFO, and total time door to door is actually a bit less even w/ the connection at LAX since I didn't have to drive nearly 2 hours to SFO.