tomfuller

I hope that yharn17 reads the thread and responds to our questions. The three cities that I know can be done for less than $100/night (solo) in good hostels are Chicago, Sacramento and Washington DC. http://www.hiusa.org/district-of-col...tpiRoCs8Tw_wcB
If you don't have a Rail Pass with remaining segments by all means use the Bolt bus for $30 and skip Philadelphia.
In my 50's I rode in coach a lot and some nights were uncomfortable. I tried not to have three or more consecutive nights on trains.
Now that I'm in my 60's my long distance trips are in a Roomette using Amtrak Guest Rewards Points.
There are flights on SouthWest airline for $41 each way between LAX and LAS. Check the monthly calendar. They are mostly on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
There are many hotel rooms in Las Vegas for less than $100/night. Some of them are pretty good. Car rentals in Las Vegas are cheap. Drive to see Hoover Dam and maybe the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Lily_Scott

If your budget is around $100/night for accommodations, try airbnb and finding private rooms that you can stay in versus renting the whole property. I've always found that I can find rooms right around the $80/night range depending on the city.

I've always been a bit bias and said that there isn't much to do in Los Angeles. If you had to choose cities on the west coast, I'd go with San Francisco and Las Vegas. Maybe it's my personal preference, but I've found there is much more to do and see.

If you're looking for budget friendly restaurants, try tripext. It's a local text app that connects you locals in the area. They should be able to give you some good local spots that are cheap.

janisj

Lily - I suspect you are mainly posting to flog tripext . . . but in any case >>there isn't much to do in Los Angeles

suze

<there isn't much to do in Los Angeles>

sorry but that's about the funniest thing I've read here in a long time. In ALL OF LA??? Not much to do??? There's more to see and do in Vegas? -hahahahaha

janisj

Ah, but suze, you didn't check tripext. . .

Iahawk

I think I'd pick half of the country and plan a month to do that. If you do NYC, you have Central Park (kind of a nature place), Broadway, Symphony, Sept 11th Memorial and Museum, the Met, Rockefeller Center, etc.

Boston has the Freedom Trail, several great museums and you could do a couple of days on Cape Cod (Nature)

Philadelphia - Franklin Museum, Freedom Hall, etc.

Chicago - Art Institute, Museum of Science and Industry, Adler Planetarium, Field Museum, Millenium Park, Michigan Ave and Lake Michigan or the Chicago River for an architectural boat tour, paddle boarding, beach, Lincoln Park zoo, for your nature stuff etc.

Jet Blue and Southwest both fly from the east coast (various airports) to Chicago and that would be the cheapest thing wihout spending hours on a train. All of those places have reasonable hostels as well.

If you want to do the Western half...
San Francisco for all the art and culture with day trips to Muir Woods and Napa Valley for the nature

Lake Tahoe for nature

Yellowstone National Park for Nature

Loop back to Las Vegas for whatever (I wouldn't call it culture or nature) - maybe see Hoover Dam as a day trip

Then to LA and back to your home.

Munchin_Mishelle

There are a lot of issues with how you're planning this.

First of all one month is not enough time to see everything you have listed unless you're spending incredibly short days in each city and are willing to spend most of your time in transit.

You will never find consistent lodging for under $100 a month if you plan to stay in hotels/motels. Hostel's aren't as big here in the states so you can't really rely on them either.

How do you plan on traveling from place to place?

But your biggest issue is you need a budget. No one can give you practical advice without a budget.

tomfuller

It has been 12 days since yharn17 posted and never came back to answer any questions. There is no sense continuing this thread without response to our questions.