Help planning a 4 week trip around west coast of USA
 

Hello all,

Im trying to plan a 4 week trip (me and my partner, we are both mid 20's from New Zealand) around the west coast of USA (LA, San Diego, Las Vegas, San Fran etc etc) and I would love some advice.
I was thinking of doing 6 nights in Anaheim and 6 in San diego. 4 on both Las Vegas and 4 San Francisco but from there we are stuck. We realy want to do disneyland and 1 other fun park as well as a tour around LA/ Hollywood to all the sights. ive been told San diego and beautiful and ofcourse we want to go to Las Vegas.
We are happy to get a rental car to travel around abit but to cut costs down maybe for only 3 of the 4 weeks.

Any advice on where we could go and how long we should spend there would be great.

Sorry should add that we plan on going Mid Sept through to Mid Oct next year (2008)

Four weeks is plenty of time for this trip. I would start with a few more days in San Francisco (6 or 7 would be perfect - 20 somethings or not) and a few less in Anaheim.

San Diego, Disney, LA (including Hollywood), San Fransico and and a quick hop to Vegas and back are all good ideas.

I hope your four days in Las Vegas includes a day trip out of the city. I would also plan on no more than 3 days in Vegas itself.

You will not need a rental car in San Francisco but you should get one for everywhere else.

What are you two interested in besides the "fun parks"? Surfing? Hiking? Night clubs? Food? Culture?

Since you are coming from so far, you might really want to see a bit of the Western Desert states. Try to get to the Grand Canyon. Its not that far from Las Vegas, and really worth it. I think you can do Disneyland/Anaheim in 2-3 days.. You could spend 6 nights in San Diego... but its a little long....4-5 might be better. San Francisco is worth more than 4 nights, and then there is the drive up the Coast. Certainly Route #1 from San Luis Obispo to Carmel. I would try to visit as many of the Calif. missions as you can. They are all different. Originally they were built one day's horse ride apart. Many are now in ruins, but many have been restored and they are interesting to see because its part of early California History. You can start in San Diego and work up from there. If you fly into San Diego, you can then drive up to L.A. and north, and see all that you want to see and fly home from San Francisco.
Welcome to America.

Thanks heaps for you posts. The only reason why we thought we would need 5-6 days in anaheim / LA is that its a 13 hour flight from NZ and we thought it would be a good idea to chill out and have a relax for a day before getting into it. (so that takes out 2 nights already)
We deff wanted to do Grand Canyon and were thinking of going to santa barbara ??? Would SB be a good base for day trips or could you sujest somewhere else.
We are on abit of a budget so somewhere that has ok motels would be good.
This is what i thought. LA / Anaheim, San Diego, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Santa Barbara (or somewhere on the coast) then back to LA to fly out again.

My parter is quite interested in seeing some old fashioned cowboy towns (i know that may sound lame) but is there anywhere around GC or down the coast where we could see that kind of stuff ???

We are from Nelson New Zealand and did a three week trip to the USA in April 2007. We actually spent a week and a half on the East Coast and the same on the West Coast.

We decided to fly into San Francisco, spend three and a half days there then flew to Washington DC, New York and came back to Anaheim and spent five days there. San Francisco was a great place to get over the jet lag from our flight from NZ.

I know you want to stay on the West Coast I guess what I'm saying is that you could fly into San Francisco do the coastal drive up to Los Angeles, do the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas San Diego, Anaheim and fly out of Los Angeles. Not sure on the best way to do this but I'm sure there a lots of Fodor's out there who have done the trip.

We loved San Fransico would go back again, we stayed at the Columbus Motor Inn which is a very reasonable price and in a good area, five or so minutes walk to Fisherman's Wharf and close to cable car and bus line to get to the main shopping areas.

Three days is really enough for Disneyland/ Anaheim although we did a day trip to San Diego and one to Universal Studio's so did fill up our 5 days.

Your latest itinerary looks great.

Columbus Motor Inn in SF is a GREAT suggestions and a real bargain. It is consistantly very highly recommended on this board for the budget traveller.

Hotel prices in Las Vegas go way down on weekdays (it is a common weekend getaway for west coast residents). I strongly suggest you go there mid-week.

Some San Diego hotel ideas:
http://www.keatinghouse.com/
http://www.gaslampplaza.com/

or if you plan to spend most of your time in San Diego at the beach (although New zealand has better beaches...)
http://www.beachcottages.com/
http://www.beachhaveninn.com/

Others here will surely have ideas for "old fashioned cowboy towns" that fit in around your locations....

Here's an interactive map of "ghost towns" in the region to explore. When planning and looking, keep in mind that the drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas is five hours (and that is all highways - the ghost towns tend to be on much smaller, less direct roads).

http://www.ghosttowngallery.com/htme/map.htm

I have read some other posts so am i right in thinking that i should avoid having a rental car in San Fran as it makes its pretty hard to get around the city, its expensive for parking and the public transport is pretty good ????

You are right on about San Francisco. You can take the BART (rail line) from the airport to downtown SF. Union Square would be central and there are some relatively lower cost hotels there, you can use Tripadvisor.com to get an idea of what they are like.

There is a chain called Motel6 (part of Accor) and they have some good locations in Santa Barbara, which tends to be expensive. If you are driving from LA to San Francisco along US 1 (which is worth doing) you might want to visit Santa Barbara just for the day and stay a bit farther north. I sort of think Santa Barbara is no more than a one-night town. There's a Motel6 in San Simeon that is fairly good (right across from the ocean). And the next morning you are near Hearst Castle for a visit and then drive up US1 and spend the night in Monterey or Carmel.

<i>I have read some other posts so am i right in thinking that i should avoid having a rental car in San Fran as it makes its pretty hard to get around the city, its expensive for parking and the public transport is pretty good ????</i>

Correct.

ok we talked about it last night and how does this sound.... ?????
fly into San Fran (stay for 5 nights), drive down the coast to LA stopping for 2-3 nights along the way in different places (suggestions would be great. lol)
Stay in LA afew nights, go down to San Diego, across to Grand Canyon, up to Las Vegas and back to La to fly back to little old NZ.
We have an extra night or 2 so anyone got any ideas where we could stop for a quick ticky tour ??? maybe between San Diego and GC or LV and LA ???

I think one night in Anaheim is plenty (definately not 6!!)

Cities up the coast to consider:
San Diego (La Jolla, Coronado)
Los Angeles
Santa Barbara
San Francisco and then the wine country area
I would then fly up to Portland - then Seattle.

Good places to stay overnight between San Francisco and Los Angeles:

- Carmel by the Sea/ Monterey (gorgeous coast, great aquarium)
- San Simeon (for proximity to Hearst Castle- popular sight in the area)
- Santa Barbara (con't miss it, one of the most scenic S.CA towns)

There's not really any place that's worth an overnight in between Vegas-L.A. and S.D.-Grand Canyon, in my opinion. If you have extra days, you could use them in between S.F. and L.A. or between L.A. and S.D. (Laguna Beach is a great spot). You could also use those extra days to further explore Arizona/ Nevada (a side trip from Vegas?).

I'm so glad you've decided not to spend all that time in Anaheim. Definitely spend your time in L.A. instead and just stop in Anaheim for a day or two to do Disneyland.

Since you'll have a car in L.A. you don't necessarily need to do a tour. Everything should be pretty easy to access via your own car. Fodors has good multiple-day itineraries for L.A. sightseeing. I'd also highly recommend doing a studio tour while in L.A. Warner Bros. does a great one. You can also go to the taping of a TV show if that interests you.

Good luck!

ooohhh realy ??? how would I go about finding out about the tv show tapings ??? you mean I could sit in the aduience ???? (sorry i know spelling is off haha)
I know some people may say that La isnt that great etc etc but compared to NZ anything to do with USA is amazing and worth seeing haha

One other idea (which might require some re-configuring of your schedule) is to head north from San Francisco to the Redwoods - nothing like them anywhere else in the world. You can get to some of the major groves in around 5-6 hours from SF, so one overnight can handle it. Really worthwhile.

For TV shows, http://www.tvtickets.com/

I think people say L.A. isn't that great because it's big and not always easy to get around-- and also because people don't always know what to see there. A lot of the &quot;major attractions&quot; are kinda &quot;eh&quot; while some of the off-the-beaten path stuff is super cool. You just have to find what appeals to you.

The website posted above for TV taping tickets is great. You can also usually get them in front of the Chinese Theatre or other touristy locations. Be aware that tapings often last 4 hours or so and you cannot leave early, so it can be a real time commitment if you're not in town for long. Another option is to try to get into the Jay Leno show at NBC. It will involve standing on line for a while, but the actual taping is shorter. NBC also does a very good tour if you're interested in seeing behind the scenes TV stuff.

I'd suggest that you'd get a car with a GPS device. It makes road trips much more fun, and you could easily get to the ghost towns.

Go see Red Rock Canyon in Vegas and the Grand Canyon as well. Red Rock is a few minutes away from the strip and well worth the visit (Pictures at: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog...2007/tpod.html)

I think it's cool that you want to go to Hollywood, but a day there, for me, was good enough. I thought it was disappointing.

You could also plan a trip in Sonoma valley (wine country).

Free California road trip guide
http://www.bestofcaliforniadrives.com/

I think if I were you, I'd fly from San Diego to Las Vegas...then rent another car, and drive to the Grand Canyon..if you have extra days, try to see more of that part of the USA. AAA has a very good map called Indian Country and it will show all sorts of scenic drives and places to see in the Western States. Flying into SF from NZ is a great idea. You won't have major jet lag, just airplane fatigue. You can see Redwoods just over the Golden Gate bridge from SF in the Muir Woods. Skip the wine country...you have that in NZ...(and I live in the wine country) spend what ever extra days you have exploring the American SouthWest desert/indian country. That will REALLY be different from NZ. You can drive from SF to Monterey/Carmel. Over night there (see the aquarium), and the next day drive down Route #1 to San Luis Obispo or probably even to Santa Barbara, altho maybe seeing Los Olivos/Solvang might be a fun stop instead before LA. There are several old California missions along the way and they are interesting to see too.
Then fly home out of LA or San Diego if you can.