Hello all.
This will be my first trip to the states and I would like some advice on the itinerary I have roughly mapped out.
We are a mother and daughter team traveling from Sydney Australia. Originally we were going to travel to Egypt, Turkey and Greece, but due to the instability I don't want to risk it, especially for my daughters sake.
Please let me know if this sounds crazy. With advice I will tweak it.
these are rough but close to dates
leave Sydney September 3rd arrive New York. Do the touristy things Empire state building, harbor cruise, woodbury common, central park, ground zero etc....
???? day trip to Philly, New Jersey, Washington?????
Roughly spending 6 days. enough or not?
Down to Orlando staying at hotel within universal studios visit park for 2 days and also visit kennedy space centre.
Roughly spending 3 days. enough or not?
Down to Miami. touristy and maybe down to key west
Roughly spending 3 days. enough or not?
would love to fit in trip to Memphis to see Graceland some how, but it looks like its too far off the track.
Over to L.A a good 8 or 9 days here
Visiting 6 flags? Had to choose one park daughter picked it she will be turning 21 on the 21st.
Santa Monica pier, Sunset Strip, Rodeo Drive, Laguna Beach, Malibu, Pismo, Manns Chinese Theatre, celebrity homes tour and shopping. We also want to try and catch an Chelsea Lately and Ellen taping.
Plus a day trip down to Tijuana.
Over to Las Vegas by now Daughter will be 21. 4 days
Taking a walk or 2 along the strip and checking out Casinos. Not big gamblers but will have a little dabble. see a show? visit the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and Joshua Tree Forest and Shopping Outlets.
Last stop Hawaii Oahu 4 days. Pearl harbor and Arizona memorial, island tour, A Luau and shopping. Either home via Hawaii or L.A Preferably Hawaii.
All this taking place in around 29 days roughly.
Sorry its long, but I would really appreciate advice from the pros.
Thanks,
TB

Wow you do have a lot you want to see/do.

I think you might be better off jet lag wise if you want to maximize your visit if you change the order. ie. Hawaii/LA/Vegas/NY/FL/home, if that works with the 21 thing.

I would do the NY part of the trip and forget the NJ/Philli part, you would spend too much time in the travel and not enough to visit the places and the time would be better spent in NY. If you wanted to spend a day or two between NY and FlA then DC would be my choice.

Memphis is quite far off the pass and 3 days in each FL location would be enough, but you will have to figure in travel time too.

Personally, I would not take time to go to Tijuana, it would take too much time and is not really my cup of tea.

Vegas is a fun place to see, I would want to see Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and some of the other scenic wonders in the area, but Joshua Tree is a bit too far on this trip IMO.

I'm assuming you will be flying between each of your locations. That will have to be figured into your travel time too.

I'm sure you will get other ideas here. Have a fantastic trip and come back and let us know how it goes.

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distances are vast

pick 4 areas spend 1 week in each

for me New York/Philly Orlando Vegas/Grand Canyon LA

so no backtracking...

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econo flights... amtrak.com pass for overland

pretty long though trains are not great

except for east coast

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Happy Planning,

I have several comments to make.

emalloy is correct about the order of your travel (Hawaii/LA/Vegas/NY/FL/home). You will have major jet lag and it is always tougher flying from west to east. I have traveled from Australia to the US East Coast twice and it is rough the next few days after returning home.

Tijuana is more than a destination that takes up too much of your time. It is dirty, seedy and very dangerous to visit, as is most of Mexico. Just Google "Tijuana crime" or Mexico crime" and see what you get. Don't even consider it!

Three days in Orlando may not be enough time. Universal Studios is actually two parks (Universal Studios Florida & Islands of Adventure) and KSC is another day. The theme park scene in Orlando is like Queensland's Gold Coast on steroids. Do some more research here to see what is available and how much time you want to spend.

Skip New Jersey. Philly and Washington would be interesting, but I think you have too many other places that would have priority. You could also cut down the time (8-9 days) for L.A.

Skip Memphis. Time permitting, substitute Charleston.

_____________________________________________
Vic's travels: http://my.flightmemory.com/vogilvie

I'm going to recommend that you spend a little of your time in Orlando at least on Disney property, if not in a Disney park. The Universal people spend a great deal of time and trouble trying to persuade visitors that Disney is for small children, but this is really not true. It does have a quite different flavor, but there is a great deal for adults, and Downtown Disney has some really fun dining/shopping.

I don't feel qualified to comment on the Western part of the itinerary, since Las Vegas is the only one of those places I've been to, but for the East Coast, I would do NY (3 or 4 days), Washington or Philadelphia (one day, and take Amtrak from NY), then fly to Orlando (4 or 5 days), and rent a car for the South Florida portion, and fly to LA.

I would spend the first 6 days in New York, since you will be jet-lagged, you'll have plenty of time to recover and still see a lot of stuff even if you have to go to bed early! If you want to go to DC, add a couple of days here.

3 days each in Orlando and Miami, the former not my cup of tea, but the amount of time sounds right.

Las Vegas - I'd probably shorten the time spent there. For me, 1-2 days in Vegas is plenty, 3 if you add in a side trip.

The rest (excluding Hawaii) - Southern California -- stay in LA, but plan to visit San Diego, too. Skip Tijuana, it's really not a nice place.

Hawaii - 4 days.

Sounds fabulous to me!!

I don't know what you think you are going to see in Tijuana but you are going to be disappointed at best, and at worst . . . yeah. I agree with everyone else to skip it.

How are you getting around? Hopefully you will have a rental car at least in Southern California and Florida.

Personally I would drop Orlando and do Universal Studios in California instead. Also forget Tijuana, it is not Mexico and the border towns could be iffy right now. Getting back into the US even for citizens there are long lines at the Customs.

Have a great trip.

Agree that sometimes less is more.

I don;t think you have to much time in NY - since you wil be badly jetlagged. If you want to add anything here take the train to DC for 2 or 3 days.

I don;t get Orlando but that's just me.

I thnk you could cut a day or 2 of SoCal if you want (and assume you will have a car there and do LA and SD).

Do NOT go to Tijuana. Run by drug lords and VERY dangerous - as well as no reason to go.

The folks who say doing the west coast first have a point. Unfortunately I don't think it would work 21st birthday-wise. You REALLY don't want to be in Las Vegas until she has turned 21. Also -- getting over the jet lag in Southern California where one really does need a car would be worse than recovering in NYC where you don't want/need to drive.

Absolutely 1000000% skip any idea of going to Tijuana. Dangerous, nasty, dirty -- just a really bad idea. You could squeeze in a couple of days in San Diego by eliminating a day in Vegas and the trip to TJ.

Your 'general' division of time is OK - not the way I personally would divide things but a reasonable plan.

I'd do about 4, maybe 5, days in NYC, and then travel to Wash DC for at least 2 days/nights. Don't try to do DC as a day trip.

Then down to FL, and on from there.

>>

You are not alone

Tijuana is a dump, a three-hour drive from LA, and a dump. It's also a complete craphole. It's like some of the dodgier areas of Cairns circa 1999 (when I was there) only with easier access to guns for the ne'er-do-wells. Mexico's government is involved in a nasty drug war with drug kingpins and coyotes (shifty buggers who help border-crossers sneak into the US) and Northern Mexico is a lawless hinterland whose internecine disputes leak over the border into the US with alarming regularity (just ask the whole state of Arizona). Did I mention it's a dump?

DC is not a daytrip from NYC. Philly could be, but Boston and DC are too far away. That said, you're not American and a trip to DC would be excellent, so do it and stay a while.

Memphis is also a dump -- US type dump so less bad than Tijuana, but still a dump (#2 in violent crime rate [to Detroit] of all US cities, #1 in property crime [there's nothing left in Detroit to steal, I guess]; stats are for 2007 from FBI via Wikipedia). Of course, it's nowhere near wherever else you're considering going, and you're evidently going to come to terms with the fact that the continental US is larger than Australia, so it shouldn't even be on the list.

I'd consider scratching Miami. LA has beach and more beach and more beach. You're not going to meet Dexter or see CSI:Miami in action but you're likely to run into celebs in LA. Miami itself is an elephant's cemetery of overdevelopment where the carcasses of 20+ floor luxury condo edifices stand empty doing little but providing shade to the folks walking beneath them and the city also contains the unfinished husks of buildings that stand forlornly after being abandoned in mid-construction by companies whose funding ran out in 2008. Key West is a long drive from Miami. And September is hurricane season (Orlando doesn't get hit as often or as badly as Miami). Rather a crap time to be there.

I'd consider skipping Orlando too because California has most of the same, or similar, theme parks albeit on smaller scale (there's a Universal Studios in Hollywood). That said, there's no Cape Canaveral in California so if that's high on your list, enjoy Florida.

I'm not really sure why you are going to Florida. Take those days and spend more time in Washington DC. Maybe add San Francisco Bay Area.

In Southern California, You can go to Disneyland and California Adventure, Sea World in San Diego, and Universal Studios. And absolutely no to Tijuana.

OK, so if we can all vote on whether you should skip Florida altogether, let me add my "yes" vote. If you do that, I would change my plan to:

1) 10 days northeast USA - 6 days NY, 1 day Philadelphia, 3 days Washington, DC.

2) 3 days Las Vegas

3) 12 days California (3 Los Angeles, 3 San Diego, 4 San Francisco and environs)

4) 4 days Hawaii

Voila - 29 days!

Thx to all your replies. I certainly have gained a wealth of information off you all. Wow I get the hint about Tijuana it is now off the list. he he he when i look at brochures the people are smiling and looking like they are having a good time ( maybe they airbrushed the guns in their backs out.)
Yes unfortunately the trip has to be done east to west direction due to the 21st.I didn't think about the jet-lag thing, we have never traveled such a great distance before. May have to have a few early nights. I did consider driving in particular in Orlando Florida stage, but I'm a bit worried I'll get confused driving on the opposite side and I have seen all those big highways on t.v we could end up anywhere. (which could be fun or not)
Universal Orlando we have to do due to Harry Potter world, daughter is a huge fan.
I just discovered better bidding thanks to this site so will definitely check it out
As I said I needed some advice and I really appreciate it. We will sit down and tweak it.
Thx again. I'm its not the last you will hear of me.

To combat the jet lag problem fly to Hawaii from Australia and stay 1 day. Get a good idea of what you want to see on the return trip. Fly from Hawaii to Memphis or New York. If you don't want to drive, you can see a lot of the US by riding Amtrak (train). Fly to Las Vegas from your final east coast city. After you have seen Graceland and the Mississippi River, you can safely leave Memphis, you don't even need to spend a night. When you leave California, fly back to Hawaii to see what you missed on the first day.

Please don't consider Amtrak (except for journeys along the eastern seaboard NY > Wash DC, that sort of thing) In the rest of the country and especially out west our rail systems leave a LOT to be desired. The cars are comfortable -- but they'd better be since trains often run hours late (and sometimes days late)

I live in an Amtrak hub city, and we often pick up friends coming in from Reno, Chicago and other places - if they arrigve on time we consider it a miracle.

Be careful about bidding on accomodations this far in advance. These reservations are pre-paid and unchangeable. In a trip such as yours a lot of things can change. One day of illness/missed flights and you've got a lot of re-scheduling to do.
Joshua Tree will be easier to schedule during your 9 days in L.A. than during your short 4 days in Las Vegas. And Vegas will be 110 degrees in September so don't plan on too much outdoor activity.

Skip Tijuana BUT definitely visit SAN DIEGO!

[September 3rd arrive New York. Do the touristy things Empire state building, harbor cruise, woodbury common, central park, ground zero etc....
???? day trip to Philly, New Jersey, Washington?????
Roughly spending 6 days. enough or not?]

Skip Woodbury Commons and New Jersey (what in NJ did you want to see??). Pick either Philly or DC -- Philly can easily be done as a day trip, DC less easily but still do-able (you'll be tired). For either DC or Philly, take the train or, for DC, take the shuttle out of LaGuardia into Reagan National - one hour as opposed to 2hrs 45mins on the train.