Advice on West Coast USA trip

solerina

HiWe are hoping to go to West coast USA next summer for 2.5-3 weeks approx. We definitely want to see San Fran and the coast over towards LA and possibly spend a little bit of time in San Diego.I have been told that it would be possible to visit Las Vegas and maybe one of the forest parks along the way.Has anyone got any advice on must see places or suggested itinarys (cant spell that word)Thanks

cali_eire

I lived in California for many years (both in the north in SF and in the south in the desert).

If I had three weeks and I had never been to CA I would spend a week in SF and the Bay Area (You could spend longer there but at least you will get a decent sense of things) SF is made up of many unique neighborhoods with different personalities (Such as The Mission, The Haight, The Castro, Pac Heights, Russian Hill, Marina, The Sunset, SoMa, NoPa, Bernal Heights etc) which are fun to wander around. The city it self is only 7 miles by 7 miles and easy to get around by foot or public transport but if you want to make day trips to the Wine Country (Napa & Sonoma about 60 min to the North) or Santa Cruz (Nice beach town about 80 min to the south) a car really helps.

After this you could take a few days to drive to southern California (The actual drive down interstate 5 only takes about 5 hours to the LA area) but you could take a small detour and stop at Yosemite National Park and spend a couple of days there. Yosemite is awesome.

You could spend another week easily in LA, again LA has a lot of interesting neighborhoods and adjacent towns like Silverlake, Los Feliz, West Hollywood Santa Monica etc. While you can get around LA on the bus and the Metro it's not as easy as SF public transport and outside the core neighborhoods LA really sprawls so a car is really helpful to cover more ground. To the south is Orange County which has some beautiful and exclusive beachside towns like Newport Beach and Laguna Beach that are fun to see. It's also home to Disneyland if that's something you want to see. To the south of Orange County is San Diego County, San Diego is also a nice city for a day to see. I think you could get LA, OC and SD all done in a week and not feel crazy rushed).

When you are all done with SoCAL you could take a couple of days to drive the long way (Hwy 1 and Hwy 101 in certain places where you need to make up time) back to SF (presuming that's where you were flying in/out of - Are Lingus start direct flights in April) Feel free to PM me if you need help or have questions I can answer. Good luck and have fun!

legin500

Fly into vegas (generally cheaper flights), hire car.
Drive up through death valley towards lake tahoe, stop off in yeosemitie for a night or 2, try to visit a small town called bridgeport, they have hot springs there and the town is beautiful.
Stay in tahoe for a couple of nights, make sure you visit emerald bay it is amazing.
Drive across into san fran (we stayed in oakland and got the ferry across each day as its much cheaper to do this) pre-book alcatraz if you want to go.
Drive down highway 1 (the big sur) stopping off in some of the towns along the way (monteray, santa monica etc) you can visit the sequoia national park at this stage aswell although it will be a bit of a detour.
Stay in LA for a few nights, we stayed out in long beach as downtown is a bit of a kip. Hollywood etc is worth seeing but not as great as I thought it would be.
At this stage you could drive down to san diego, we just drove back to Vegas for 5 nights in the aria hotel which is pure luxury and a brilliant way to finish off the trip.
Overall the trip was one of the best holidays I have ever had, loads of things to do and see, plety of shopping etc. One thing I would say though is that it can be quite expensive, we were staying in motels and cheap hotels but your still need to budget about $100-$120 per night for these. Hope this helps.

solerina

Thanks cali eire and legin 500...ye have both given me a lot to think about, now I suppose we need to book flights and decide where our start/end points are

pfannkuchen

Did a trip like this a few years back. Started in San Francisco and drove to LA, down to San Diego and up to Vegas, over about 2 and a half weeks. Stopped overnight in Pismo Beach between SF and LA but there are lots of beautiful places along Highway 1 so you could even take more time than that getting to LA (Salinas, Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur, San Simeon, Santa Barbara etc.). Scenery is stunning but you should drive it from north to south as you'll be on the right side of the road to see it all (literally!). Would definitely agree with cali_eire - spend a good bit of time in San Francisco, fantastic city!

tricky D

Here's some recent threads from over on the United States forum:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057070265
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057040770
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057046999
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057026590

InTheTrees

legin500 wrote: »

Fly into vegas

Drive up through death valley towards lake tahoe, stop off in yeosemitie

Stay in tahoe for a couple of night

Drive across into san fran

Drive down highway 1 (the big sur)

Stay in LA for a few nights

back to Vegas

I like this route. It covers all the popular spots.

A loop is usually good too because there can be charges for returning a hire car at a different location to where you piked it up.

beggars_bush

Check out the Green Tortoise hostel in San Fran

cheap
free breakfast, free dinners 3 evenings a week
good wi fi
in the middle of north beach - italian area and chinatown nearby
15 minutes walk to pier 39
9 blocks from metro station

(I just did a nine week trip down the coast from Vancouver to San Fran)

cali_eire

InTheTrees wrote: »

I like this route. It covers all the popular spots.

A loop is usually good too because there can be charges for returning a hire car at a different location to where you piked it up.

Just my personal opinion but having lived there, Las Vegas is very overrated so using it as your base and having to go their twice in one trip especially in Summer is not great. Summer in the Mojave Desert is brutal with temps around 40c so you are going to be restricted to being in a car with a/c or in a hotel casino with a/c with not a lot of time spent outside (maybe that's not a big deal for you) - same for Death Valley. Coastal California by contrast will be a much more pleasant 18c -30c. Also, there are much more flight options to either SFO or LAX direct to Europe or via another US hub so you will find cheaper flights (I fly back and forth between CA and Ireland multiple times a year) and much more options from these international gateway airports rather than Las Vegas.

Novella

cali_eire wrote: »

Just my personal opinion but having lived there, Las Vegas is very overrated so using it as your base and having to go their twice in one trip especially in Summer is not great. Summer in the Mojave Desert is brutal with temps around 40c so you are going to be restricted to being in a car with a/c or in a hotel casino with a/c with not a lot of time spent outside (maybe that's not a big deal for you) - same for Death Valley. Coastal California by contrast will be a much more pleasant 18c -30c. Also, there are much more flight options to either SFO or LAX direct to Europe or via another US hub so you will find cheaper flights (I fly back and forth between CA and Ireland multiple times a year) and much more options from these international gateway airports rather than Las Vegas.

I would agree. I was in Vegas in June and it was SO hot. Could not leave the hotel until about 5pm.

I have flown between Ireland and the US west coast four times this year and my recommendation would be to take a flight with a European stop-over as opposed to a US one, unless the US one is relatively long. I missed a flight in Chicago because it took two hours to clear customs and I believe you must clear customs in the first US airport you arrive in.

Dublin-London-LA is better, in my opinion, than Dublin-New York-LA. That could be personal preference though.

ProudDUB

Novella wrote: »

I would agree. I was in Vegas in June and it was SO hot. Could not leave the hotel until about 5pm.

I have flown between Ireland and the US west coast four times this year and my recommendation would be to take a flight with a European stop-over as opposed to a US one, unless the US one is relatively long. I missed a flight in Chicago because it took two hours to clear customs and I believe you must clear customs in the first US airport you arrive in.

Dublin-London-LA is better, in my opinion, than Dublin-New York-LA. That could be personal preference though.

No you don't, not if you are flying direct from Ireland to the US. If you are flying direct from here, you will pre clear both Customs and Immigration in Ireland before you leave. When you get to the US, you'll be able to go straight from your flight to the domestic terminal that your other flight leaves from, by passing Customs & Immigration completely. If you are flying into the US from any other European airport, you have to do the Customs and Immigration thing over there & Lord knows how long that will take.

Novella

ProudDUB wrote: »

No you don't, not if you are flying direct from Ireland to the US. If you are flying direct from here, you will pre clear both Customs and Immigration in Ireland before you leave. When you get to the US, you'll be able to go straight from your flight to the domestic terminal that your other flight leaves from, by passing Customs & Immigration completely. If you are flying into the US from any other European airport, you have to do the Customs and Immigration thing over there & Lord knows how long that will take.

Oh that's right! I flew with a prior stop-over in London so that's why I had to do Customs in the US. That was a nightmare though, not something I'd want to do again.

CaliforniaDream

As someone currently living in Vegas, I would disagree with the above. There's so mich to do in Vegas and the surrounding area. PM me if you want more advice.
I'd agree on seeing Yosemite if it's feasible. Tahoe os too far in my opinion if you're only here for two weeks.
San Francisco is a great city. The PCH is a must for me.
San Diego would be my favourite Californian city at the moment. I'd say go there. It's got everything.

Missyelliot2

Hi there,
Thanks a million to all the posters - happened to find this by accident!
Hoping to go there this summer with kids (2 teenagers and a 10 year old) - just a quick question - where to fly to? We would like to take all to the Grand Canyon/Yosemite and maybe a beach for a few days. We have almost 3 weeks. 'Death Valley' has also been mentioned, but am not sure ... I think the novelty might wear off after an hour!

Unfortunately, Vegas might be out.....bar a drive-thru!

Thanks for any help at all!

iusedtoknow

Missyelliot2 wrote: »

Hi there,
Thanks a million to all the posters - happened to find this by accident!
Hoping to go there this summer with kids (2 teenagers and a 10 year old) - just a quick question - where to fly to? We would like to take all to the Grand Canyon/Yosemite and maybe a beach for a few days. We have almost 3 weeks. 'Death Valley' has also been mentioned, but am not sure ... I think the novelty might wear off after an hour!

Unfortunately, Vegas might be out.....bar a drive-thru!

Thanks for any help at all!

Thats a lot to take in 3 weeks. Grand canyon (if you want to trek it as well) is 2 or 3 days- it's a long way from anywhere in particular (2 hours or so to Flagstaff).
Yosemite is a pretty long drive from there, as are the beaches of southern california (and the water is pretty cold year round).

The other thing about this is the timing. It'll be hot in arizona, hotter in death valley and hot in yosemite. We've had it really dry this year in CA and they're talking about it being the worst year for bush fires for some time - you're plans could change on the fly.

I personally would go with the grand canyon, and drive across to san diego/LA area- there are beaches but also theme parks etc.

Missyelliot2

iusedtoknow wrote: »

Thats a lot to take in 3 weeks. Grand canyon (if you want to trek it as well) is 2 or 3 days- it's a long way from anywhere in particular (2 hours or so to Flagstaff).
Yosemite is a pretty long drive from there, as are the beaches of southern california (and the water is pretty cold year round).

The other thing about this is the timing. It'll be hot in arizona, hotter in death valley and hot in yosemite. We've had it really dry this year in CA and they're talking about it being the worst year for bush fires for some time - you're plans could change on the fly.

I personally would go with the grand canyon, and drive across to san diego/LA area- there are beaches but also theme parks etc.

Thank you so, so much. It's been really helpful! We're not mad sightseers, but are so excited - we lost the run of ourselves! I think the Grand Canyon is our ultimate place to see and san diego sounds fantastic! (If I unplug the wifi now, the kids may never discover the theme parks there!!!) Really appreciate your help-Thank you so much!

lil_lisa

So, with two teenagers and a 10 year old, with activities that might not be based around sightseeing as much, what would you like to do?

There are beaches, mountains, forests, theme parks, shopping, scenery, monuments of all sorts. What would your children be interested in?

Missyelliot2

lil_lisa wrote: »

So, with two teenagers and a 10 year old, with activities that might not be based around sightseeing as much, what would you like to do?

There are beaches, mountains, forests, theme parks, shopping, scenery, monuments of all sorts. What would your children be interested in?

Hi lil_lisa -Thanks for your reply! Our children are fairly relaxed, but would like a few days at the beaches, the Grand Canyon is a must, a little (tiny) bit of shopping and a few days at theme parks. I think that we would all like our mugshot by the 'Hollywood' sign -(sad, I know!) The crew would enjoy the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the Dolby theatre.

The States are so great as there is something for everybody to do- we are just happy to be there, but don't want to waste our holiday, due to not planning.

thekerrywoman

Hi,

Some of ye might be able to help me too.

I am thinking of going to California on a J1, mostly looking at San Diego. I am looking for somewhere that's fun, friendly, easy to get work and has lots to do!! I love the beach that's why I am thinking of SoCal. I have only ever visited New York as I am from Ireland. I will be 21 going over but hear its very strict on I.D?

Anyone have any advice you could give me about S.D? Or even suggest other places to visit?
Also is it very expensive to live over there?

Thanks everyone.

lil_lisa

Missyelliot2, if you're stopping in Hollywood to see the sign and walk of fame (which are fun!) I would recommend checking out Madam Tussaudes Wax Museum, its fun for all ages, with friends and family over to visit, I've been about 4 times and am still entertained.

If the sky is clear, I would also recommend taking a trip up Mulholland Drive. It has some super cool views of the sign and a LOT of famous people live there.

thekerrywoman, San Diego can be quite tough to get a job in if you arrive too late. I've always arrived mid-June and have found it close to impossible to get a job (you would think I would learn!). I'm not sure about surrounding smaller areas, like Huntington Beach, Santa Barbara. They might be easier. As for ID, you will need to bring your passport everwhere so make copies of everything as soon as you arrive. I would also consider getting a California ID once you arrive, that will definitely help.

thekerrywoman

lil_lisa, I am hoping to be there at latest the end of may ? I am thinking mission/pacific beach Do you no how I would go about getting a California ID once I arrive?

Thanks

lil_lisa

Sure, have a read through here. Do note that the ID may only be valid until the end of your visa (that's the way drivers licences are going nowadays) but its still so much better than having to carry your passport around.

thekerrywoman

ya that is a really handy idea (knowing me I would lose my passport on the first night out).

Just wondering in case you know any good places to stay in Mission/ Pacific Beach ? I'd love to live on the beach but I no that is a really high expectation