California

ShoulderChip

Hello,
I am trying to organise a holiday/roadtrip with my parents for there 25th wedding anniversary.
They are going to california for 4 weeks hoping to take in

San Fran 9(5 nights)
Yosemite(2 nights)
Santa cruz(2 nights)
Travel down big sur to la (4 nights)
Santa Monica/La(4 nights)
Disneyland, anaheim (1 night)
San diego (3 nights)
Vegas (5 nights) including helicopter tour to Grand Canyon.
La pre departure (1 night)

The nights arent exactly right as I am just trying to remember what we wrote down earlier but it is near enough right.

Has anyone done anything like this before?

They do not want to be wastng too much money on hotels so does anyone have any idea for accommodation, what ar ethe best motels?

Would it be possible to book a package with some sort of motel company and stay with them for lots of the trip?

For some of the bigger places san fran etc. it would be probably better to be in a hotel in the middle of the city, anyone know any good decent budget hotels?

Is there anything nearby that they should also go see.

Wouldapreciate any help thank you.

Holiday is for April by the way, and I wish I was going!
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storka

Did a similar trip with my parents and brother a few years ago. Best holiday ever!
Did a slightly different route by not doing San Diego (heard it wasnt great to see) and going North instead which is really stunning:

Approx route/nights:
Fly into L.A 2-3 nights
Santa Barbara (beautiful town, lots of famous people live here) 1 night
Monterey (beautiful port town, famous aquarium) 1 night
San Francisco 2-3 nights
Sonora (really old gold mining county) 2 nights
Yosemite 1 night
Death Valley (mental place to stay! so hot) 1 night
Las Vegas 2-3 nights (no need to stay longer!)
Santa Monica 5 nights (end holiday on with rest on the beach!)

Places visited in between that are a must include Hearst Castle (between Santa Barbara and Monterey and book early), stay a night in Yosemite (must be booked really early though), staying in Death Valley was crazy theres only like 2 towns and it only contained a hotel and a shop.

In terms of hotels and that we booked everything ourselves and we stayed in a few best westerns and holiday inn (become a priority club member and you get some discounts) and also a few independent hotels. Just search the net and you'll find loads. Also any sites you wanna go to book on the net before you go because queues can be mental.

Also we did all this by car. Not sure how you were planning it.

joe_chicken

ShoulderChip wrote: »

San Fran 9(5 nights)
Yosemite(2 nights)
Santa cruz(2 nights)
Travel down big sur to la (4 nights)
Santa Monica/La(4 nights)
Disneyland, anaheim (1 night)
San diego (3 nights)
Vegas (5 nights) including helicopter tour to Grand Canyon.
La pre departure (1 night)

Just did Highway 1 from San Diego up to San Fran about 6 weeks ago, it was a great holiday.

From what I saw of Santa Cruz, it didn't seem like it warranted 2 nights there, but I could be wrong.

Hearst castle just south of The Big Sur, is a good day trip. I regret not spending more time in The Big Sur.

I stayed here treebones for a night, a little expensive for what it is, but a good experience.

Motels are easy enough to come by, about 3 out of the 7 nights we just booked ourselves into a motel the day before we got somewhere. (We picked them out of a Lonely Planet guide)

The Getty Centre near LA is great too, especially if you like trains from James Bond movies

ShoulderChip

joe_chicken wrote: »

Just did Highway 1 from San Diego up to San Fran about 6 weeks ago, it was a great holiday.

From what I saw of Santa Cruz, it didn't seem like it warranted 2 nights there, but I could be wrong.

Hearst castle just south of The Big Sur, is a good day trip. I regret not spending more time in The Big Sur.

I stayed here treebones for a night, a little expensive for what it is, but a good experience.

Motels are easy enough to come by, about 3 out of the 7 nights we just booked ourselves into a motel the day before we got somewhere. (We picked them out of a Lonely Planet guide)

The Getty Centre near LA is great too, especially if you like trains from James Bond movies

Yeah I just kind of picked Santa Cruz because of its location,
is there somewhere else close to there that you would reccommend?

is San Jose worth a visit?

How much did you find yourself paying for a motel per night per room?

thanks dude

Mommyals

Did anyone do similar with kids?? Cut out half the travelling?

Mountainsandh

I did ! Kids were 9 and 11, so big enough to keep themselves occupied on long journeys.
We landed in LA, drove across Mojave desert (stopped Joshua tree NP) to Williams, then Grand Canyon, then Las Vegas. From there headed North to ET highway, drove West to Tonopah, Mono Lake, then across Yosemite on Tioga Pass. Headed to Humboldt red woods then. Finished with SF, then drove back down with stops to LA.
In about 17 days I think.
Brilliant !


OP price line is a great website for discounted hotels.

nailer54321

Spent a bit of time in san jose, not sure its worth going to see when on holiday, nice place but unless you want to see were aa lot of the big tech companys are i think there are better places to visit.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

kerry4sam

Thread moved to where it would be better suited.

Thanks,
kerry4sam

Manic Moran

Instead of Santa Cruz, consider Monterey. It's the other side of the same bay. They have a great aquarium, you can get on boats there for whale-watching, and it's also pretty enough.

Mountainsandh

ShoulderChip wrote: »

Hello,
I am trying to organise a holiday/roadtrip with my parents for there 25th wedding anniversary.
They are going to california for 4 weeks hoping to take in

San Fran 9(5 nights)
Yosemite(2 nights)
Santa cruz(2 nights)
Travel down big sur to la (4 nights)
Santa Monica/La(4 nights)
Disneyland, anaheim (1 night)
San diego (3 nights)
Vegas (5 nights) including helicopter tour to Grand Canyon.
La pre departure (1 night)

The nights arent exactly right as I am just trying to remember what we wrote down earlier but it is near enough right.

Has anyone done anything like this before?

They do not want to be wastng too much money on hotels so does anyone have any idea for accommodation, what ar ethe best motels?

Would it be possible to book a package with some sort of motel company and stay with them for lots of the trip?

For some of the bigger places san fran etc. it would be probably better to be in a hotel in the middle of the city, anyone know any good decent budget hotels?

Is there anything nearby that they should also go see.

Wouldapreciate any help thank you.

Holiday is for April by the way, and I wish I was going!
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OP I was just looking at your post again, the motel package sort of thing is not worthwhile, and not even sure it's possible with a European address. I looked into it for our trip, but Mr M who travels there often for work tried out the hotel cards (like airmiles sort of thing) and didn't find it very rewarding, definitely wouldn't be worth it for a short stay.

What was very worthwhile was the Go San Francisco Pass : https://www.smartdestinations.com/san-francisco-attractions-and-tours/_d_Sfo-p1.html?pass=Sfo_Prod_Go

Very handy as you don't have to queue for tickets, better value especially if like us, you want to do the open top tour bus + boat as a minimum (we had bus + boat + Ridley's believe it or not), and easy (have app on phone and show up with the squarey-thing that scans).
Open top tour bus on its own is pricey.

We also took the yearly pass for national parks : America The Beautiful
https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/passes.htm
It costs $80, but if you are planning on visiting a few it's well worth it.
Grand Canyon NP alone is $30 if you go there in your own car, and it's another $30 to drive into Yosemite.

Other NP are cheaper but still it adds up if you were planning on seeing redwoods or other scenic spots.

edit : also, we had looked at going from LV to Grand Canyon on the helicopter tour, but the reviews weren't that great (trip is a bit long, Canyon looks better from South Rim village, see youtube/tripadvisor...). So we made the detour to South Rim by car and later, when we were staying in LV, we did the Papillon 10 minutes night time strip lights flight. That was brilliant, and enough to be honest. We were picked up in a Limo and had Champagne on arrival at the terminal, and for a bit extra I got my son (helicopter mad) to be in the front seat, to this day he calls himself the copilot.

I was advised by someone on here to stop in Oatman on our way back from Grand Canyon towards Las Vegas, and it was one of our favourite places. You reach it via a really scenic road 66 (coming from the East), and it's a lovely little old style gold miners hamlet, with wild donkeys roaming the single street, and lots of crafts and tourist shops. Great fun !