Planning a trip from Phila. to Utah
 

My husband and I are planning to fly from Phila to Utah and then to LA. We would be visiting Zion Natl. Park and Bryce Canyon in Utah and then going to Pacific Palacades in CA. If anyone has done this or has ideas as to the most direct flights we'd appreciate your input.

You're best bet is to look at flying into Las Vegas and then make a round trip back to Las Vegas unless you just want to drive back to Pacific Palisades. It's a 165 miles/three hour drive from Las Vegas to Zion and another 88 miles 1 hour 45 minutes to Bryce. I would recommend spending at least one night at each location. Two nights and one full day at each park would be better.

Utahtea

> If anyone has done this or has ideas
> as to the most direct flights

Finding the "best" flight has a dozen variables, including what day you'll be flying, what city you're willing to fly into, how much extra you're willing to pay for convenience, etc, etc, etc.

The best way to find the "best" flight is to go to a booking meta-site like Kayak.com (my personal favorite, others might like others) and check all your options on scores of carriers to 100s of cities on every day of the year. You can check how much you'd save by flying on a slightly different day, or to & from a slightly different city (I once save $800 by flying out of JFK instead of PHL).

One thing to add, however: Southwest does not connect to any such meta-site. You'll have to go there to compare their rates with the ones on places like Kayak.

As noted above, flying into Las Vegas is, most likely, your best bet for good fares. But the only person who can tell YOU if a flight meets YOUR needs is YOU.

If you mean PA > the national Parks > Pacific Palisades and then back to PA, then you'll want to fly into Las Vegas and home from LAX

Whether you drive from the parks to LA/PP or fly from Las Vegas to LAX mostly depends on if you want to see anything in between, but also partly on the day of the week. For instance driving from southern Utah/LV to Los Angeles on a Sunday is horrible w/ REALLY heavy traffic.

Thank you for the heads up to fly into Las Vegas. I will check out the varying prices. From Los Angeles we are driving along hwy. 101 to San Francisco and then flying home to Philadelphia.

So are you actually going to <i>Pacific Palisades</i> . . . or did you just mean the coast?

Or fly into SLC ? 295 miles to Bryce

Quote Utahtea:
It's a 165 miles/three hour drive from Las Vegas to Zion and another 88 miles

( = 253, but no backtracking to LV if leaving from SLC)

Vaga

PS: Visit President Reagan's library on the way to SF?
http://www.reaganfoundation.org/

We are going to visit in Pacific Palisades for a couple of days.
Does anyone have recommendations on where to stay in Utah? We want to check out Arches and Zion Natl. Parks and anything in between. Thanks in advance for any and all advice.

We will be flying home from San Francisco

Do also check out the cost of the rental car and if you do not do a loop, add the drop off fees. Vegas often is much less expensive for cars than other cities.

For Zion, stay in the park or in Springdale, for Bryce, stay in the park or at Ruby's or the sister place across the street, for Arches one of the many places in Moab, we enjoyed the B&B Cali Cochita, a block from downtown.

It is a long drive from Bryce or Zion to Arches, but beautiful. While you are in Moab for Arches, do visit Canyonlands too.

Do you mean Highway 1 rather than 101? Lots of people get them mixed up. Highway 1 is the scenic coastal route that goes through Santa Barbara, Cambria, Big Sur and Monterey and Carmel. It needs two overnight stops, you can do 101 in one day but it will be a very long day and needs an early start.

We will be renting a car in LV on Sunday and returning it on Friday in LV. Any recommendations?

>>We will be renting a car in LV on Sunday and returning it on Friday in LV.<<

Are you planning on driving from Vegas to the LA area, up the coast to SF and back to LV? You don't have time for that -- especially since you are staying a couple of days in Pacific Palisades.

Earlier you posted >> From Los Angeles we are driving along hwy. 101 to San Francisco and then flying home to Philadelphia.<<

I assumed this meant you were flying hime from SFO. If not -- scratch even thinking of driving from SF to LV. That is a 10+ hour drive without any stops except for gas.

We are flying into LV and driving to SLC staying for a couple of days then to Bryce Canyon then Zion and back to LV totaling a five day trip then flying to LA and driving up the coast to San Fran

Flying PHL to LV then driving straight to SLC makes no sense at all. If your first destination is SLC, then fly into SLC.

This is soooooo confusing.

The OP didn't say anything about SLC or flying to LA. We were assuming your purpose for visiting Utah was for the National parks - which is <i>why</i> it was suggested you fly into Vegas. If you are going to SLC -- flying into Vegas makes no sense.

Whether it is better to fly to LA or drive depends on several things including day of the week, and if the one-way drop off fees are higher than the air fares.

We are going to Bryce Canyon and then to Zion after leaving SLC then flying out of LV to LA.

Patohara,

You arrive in LV, then drive to SLC, then drive south again visiting Bryce and Zion, then fly to LA?

This doesn't make a lot of sense. Is there some reason you can't fly into SLC? Do you realize LV to SLC is about a 7 hour drive?

Where are you flying from? You can choose a multi-city itinerary on the airlines' web page and book a trip in to one city and out another. It usually isn't a significant price difference, but if it is, how about just flying from LV to SLC? It will be just as cheap as car rental plus gas plus time.

Yes, we are looking for a road trip.

Ok, then you have one. I hope you have a good time! At least you are flying over the most boring and traffic filled segment - LV to LA!