Myself,Wife and Daughter(23) arrive San Francisco early sept,for 14 nights, plan to visit L.A.,Las Vegas before heading back to San Francisco,Suggestions please for safe
area inexpensive hotels at each location.Also some stopover Suggestions between the 3 cities.

There have been a lot of hotel recommendations on the board recently and doing a search will be helpful. Is this a driving vacation? If so, you may want to check your map, and consider the SF to LA to LV to Death Valley, up to Tioga Pass into Yosemite, and back to SF circle.

About 6 weeks before your journey is a good time to check hotel rates, as they will come down from what is posted now. Car rental rates as well.

Planning to visit LA and San Fran on weekends, and Las Vegas on Sunday through Thursday will save you lots of $ on accomodations, and cuts the LA traffic problem in half.

If you could provide us with some information on things that you might like to aee/do along the way we can then give you more specifics. Is it just adults or children too? Some stopover places along the way from SF to LA would be San Jose, Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur, and Santa Barbara.

Oooh, good advice CG!

Good places to stay along the way:

Monterey
Cambria/Morro Bay/San Luis Obispo
Lone Pine

Definitely check out priceline and hotwire for your accomodations. You can get much nicer places for the same amout of money.

I agree with Clark's advice. Check out biddingfortravel.com before using priceline. Some of the areas on the list to see along the way should include San Jose, Monterey Bay Area/Carmel, Big Sur, Morro Bay, and San Luis Obispo.