Trip to California

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Orchid1

Original Poster:

877 posts

107 months

Saturday 14th November 2015
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Having done the East Coast of the USA a few times we want to try the West Coast next year. We were thinking of going to Los Angeles and hiring a car to explore in and around the place however i've heard it isn't all that great to visit. Should we press ahead or consider San Francisco/San Diego instead?

NNH

1,515 posts

131 months

Saturday 14th November 2015
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If you've got a couple of weeks to play with, then you could take in LA, San Francisco and Las Vegas. You'd be able to go through Death Valley, Yosemite, and Napa.

GCH

3,984 posts

201 months

Saturday 14th November 2015
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Orchid1 said:
however i've heard it isn't all that great to visit
You heard wrong.

Nothing to stop you doing all three though. SF is 14hrs along the PCH (CA1) and about 5 via the more direct I-5.
San Diego is about 2.5hrs. Alternatively the surfliner is a nice way to do it.

[Edited to add further info after you quoted me- sorry!]

Edited by GCH on Saturday 14th November 23:56

Orchid1

Original Poster:

877 posts

107 months

Saturday 14th November 2015
quotequote all
GCH said:
You heard wrong.
I suspected so. Los Angeles to me seems a more laid back and exciting place with alot to discover just on it's sheer size alone.

A number of critical things i've read/heard have been from people who seem to make the first mistake of going there and not renting a car then complaining about the size of the place and lack of public transport.

antjrice

22 posts

125 months

Sunday 15th November 2015
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LA itself isn't for me but nearby Malibu and Santa Monica are a different story - amazing places.

Heading up from there and ending up in San Francisco is a fantastic trip.

Need at least 10 days to do it right though (Driving Route 1, Yosemite, Napa (or Sonoma - my preference), San Francisco).

spikeyhead

17,225 posts

196 months

Sunday 15th November 2015
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I spent some time in LA many years ago. No two things worth seeing were within a couple of miles of each other, so spread out. SF far better as a tourist.

steveo3002

10,494 posts

173 months

Sunday 15th November 2015
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while you might not want to spend 2 weeks holiday in downtown LA , theres soo much to do around the area , great place to visit you wont run out of things to do

guessing sinse youre here you like cars , theres dozens of car shows and events on too

gary71

1,963 posts

178 months

Sunday 15th November 2015
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Road trip is the answer! I did the standard west coast loop this summer and it's great. If you want any more route details let me know.

Excuse the cut and paste post below from a different forum:

My wife's plan for her 40th was a beach holiday, mine was a road trip... I won! 8)

The route comes highly recommended and covers every base of spectacular scenery and locations, has to be done, proper once in a lifetime stuff!



First stop after landing in Vegas was the appropriately named Furnace Creek, 47 deg in the shade. To get there we drove past the lowest point in the west, Badwater salt flats and on into Death Valley: Awesome place. I could have stayed for days if it wasn't so chuffing hot you couldn't breath!

Badwater Salt flats:


Zabraski Point:


Golden Canyon (for the Star Wars spotters among you!)


Artists Drive: Now this is a spectacular road!


...and onto Mammoth Mountain for some real mountain biking!



...and then Yosemite National Park: Beautiful and dreadful in equal measure. Beautiful scenery, when you can actually see it through the hoards of tourists eating expensive cold burgers (including us!) and terrible over priced accommodation... so we left a day earlier than planned.





...Next stop San Francisco:

That beetle from Bullitt is still out doing laps.



Alcatraz: Brilliant and disturbing. Has to be done.



..Down Highway One, watching whales on the way. Maybe doing the whole thing in one day was a little far... My kids are amazingly tolerant to 12 hour drives smile



Santa Monica, Universal Studios, then Disney and out to Sedona. Somewhere I could stay for weeks. Love it.



We hired a Jeep and went exploring: The capabilities of this car where just amazing, absolutely nothing was going to stop it!



...and north to the Grand Canyon. It really is the most impressive thing you'll ever see. No photo can do it justice.



Then Vegas again for a couple of night, no photos, not really worth the effort! It's one of those places to be experienced just the once so you can say you have, but other than that has no redeeming properties!

Edit to include map

Edited by gary71 on Sunday 15th November 10:20

steveo3002

10,494 posts

173 months

Sunday 15th November 2015
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get onto hertz

i rented these over a couple of trips








Orchid1

Original Poster:

877 posts

107 months

Sunday 15th November 2015
quotequote all
steveo3002 said:
get onto hertz

i rented these over a couple of trips







I was just about to ask about the best rental car companies, thanks for the tip!

steveo3002

10,494 posts

173 months

Sunday 15th November 2015
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hertz do quidco too , so often up to 10% back

search online for a discount code too , some good ones about and great if you have a amex card

Nickyboy

6,700 posts

233 months

Sunday 15th November 2015
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+1 for Hertz


a311

5,789 posts

176 months

Monday 16th November 2015
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Most people I've spoken to who stayed in LA proper really didn't think much of it. We've done a couple of road trips to California and have stayed in Santa Monica which I liked as it's got a small town feel to it.

Road trip is the answer, California is a very diverse place in a relatively small area, beaches, cities, lakes, forests, baron deserts.

andy-xr

13,204 posts

203 months

Monday 16th November 2015
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Downtown LA is a bit of a nightmare, smoggy, hot and the traffic is nuts. But, outside of downtown LA is decent, there's the observatory (a place to do your best Terminator impression), there's Hollywood and all that's got, Sunset Strip, Universal Studios and heaps of other places to go and things to do even just if it's the usual tourist haunts. I try and get off the beaten path and see stuff that's a bit more real than whatever's being punted as overpriced tourist tat.

San Francisco is very different, it's a lot colder and there's not as much traffic, but it's more of a cultured visit together with some decent partying in the North Beach area if you dont want to do the usual tourist stuff

marcosgt

11,011 posts

175 months

Tuesday 17th November 2015
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antjrice said:
LA itself isn't for me but nearby Malibu and Santa Monica are a different story - amazing places.

Heading up from there and ending up in San Francisco is a fantastic trip.

Need at least 10 days to do it right though (Driving Route 1, Yosemite, Napa (or Sonoma - my preference), San Francisco).
The golden rule of California seems to be HEAD NORTH!

I've only ventured as far south as LA (Sorry, but it rates as one of the worst places I've ever been!), but as you head north Santa Monica is nicer (albeit very touristy), Malibu is OK, Ventura is nice and quiet and by the time you get to Santa Barbara, LA is just a faint unpleasant memory.

Of course, none are a patch on Monterey or San Francisco, unless your primary requirement is sunshine.

SF, in contrast to LA, is somewhere I could actually live. It's an attractive city and the bay is lovely. The people are friendly too and it's cosmopolitan too, with none of the ghettoisation of LA.

Go north enough and you hit the mountains, which are something else again.

If it was me I'd start in SF head east and then south and then head back up again along the coast, long before LA...

Which is more or less what we did in 2002



SF -> Yosemite -> Grand Canyon -> Zion -> Hoover Dam -> Vegas -> Death Valley -> Sequoia National Forest -> Monterey -> SF

Couldn't get Google maps to let me route back to SF from Monterey, but that's how we finished.

M


Edited by marcosgt on Tuesday 17th November 15:23

undred orse

964 posts

195 months

Wednesday 18th November 2015
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Just to add a bit of balance - we went to SF last year and hated the place.The prison trip is good but go early and pre book well in advance or you may not get a place but otherwise I found the place full of homeless people on the streets along with a high propotion of obvious drug addicts/mentally ill people to the point that it was unsettling.This was in the tourist areas as well as the shopping areas.

Not a place I will ever go back to.

Highly recommend Sonoma and Napa is also good.

South of LA Huntington Beach is good for a surf vibe - and Chip Foosse workshop tours.Well worth the trip a couple of miles from the beach front and Chip is a great bloke.

Richyboy

3,739 posts

216 months

Wednesday 18th November 2015
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I went from Hollywood to San Francisco to Vegas over five days. Very easy to drive because the roads are wide and very little stopping for the most part (cruise control makes it easy).

Chris4410

42 posts

100 months

Wednesday 18th November 2015
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I was on the west coast last month and my recommendations would be the Pacific coast drive and Yosemite, we also spent time in San Fran and LA which whilst I enjoyed I wouldn't rush back to.

San Fran was the nicer of the two cities and Alcatraz was worth a visit, I would recommend the night tour it is far more atmospheric at night and due to restrictions fewer people are allowed on the Island which really helps (600 vs 2000).

I am not sure what Yosemite will be like at this time of year but it was perfect last month, not too busy and we had snow along the Tioga pass above 8000 feet which was a really nice addition.

silobass

1,176 posts

101 months

Wednesday 18th November 2015
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If you're going to go route 1 from LA to SF (or the other way around), spend a night in a hotel during the trip, it's a long old drive, mainly because of tourists going 30mph! It's a lovely road and you won't want to rush it.

louiebaby

10,651 posts

190 months

Wednesday 18th November 2015
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steveo3002 said:
hertz do quidco too , so often up to 10% back

search online for a discount code too , some good ones about and great if you have a amex card
I saved a third of the price by booking through the Irish website, in Euros, on a GBP credit card. The same prices were offered to the Dutch too...