Critique my last min American road trip

[sidekickdmr]

Ok so due to the Zika thing going around at the moment we are thinking of amending our Cancun beach holiday and instead doing something we’ve always wanted to do and travel across America, any excuse


So this is what we are thinking:

- Fly into San Francisco, 2 nights in a nice hotel

- Pick up a hire car from sanfran, something sporty and fun, mustang/vette

- Drive to Vegas with a night in a motel somewhere on the way

- Drop the hire car off in Vegas and stay 3 nights in a nice hotel

- Fly from Vegas to Houston, stay 2 nights in Houston

- Pick up a hire car, something a little more basic and cheap, drive to New Orleans with a motel stop on the way

- Stay 2 nights in New Orleans

- Fly to Orlando, stay 2 nights in Orlando

- Pick up a hire car, something convertible and drive to Miami, no stopover

- 3 nights in Miami in a really nice hotel with a beach/pool etc

- Fly home

Thoughts?

Alternitive city's/towns?

Thanks

Edited by sidekickdmr on Thursday 4th February 10:11

[NNH]

Random thoughts:
I often find it's cheaper to fly to Vegas first rather than the West Coast
It's a pretty long drive from SF to Vegas, though it would let you take in Tahoe and/or Yosemite

[unrepentant]

Why do you want to go to Houston?

[Matt Harper]

Why do you want to go to Houston or New Orleans?

[Halb]

Locals call it 'Frisco.

Houston sounds OK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Hous...

Weird Austin might be a detour?

[castex]

New Orleans is great, but why go there starting from where you are?
I would stick to the west coast: Seattle-Frisco-Vegas-LA-San Diego-Baja California.
That would be a good trip.

[Matt Harper]

castex said:

New Orleans is great, but why go there starting from where you are?
I would stick to the west coast: Seattle-Frisco-Vegas-LA-San Diego-Baja California.
That would be a good trip.

New Orleans is a nasty, horrible, filthy and dangerous sthole. Wading through vomit and rat piss on Bourbon Street is disgusting.

"something we’ve always wanted to do and travel across America" - read his original post FFS.

I would recommend this route which I've done twice (in each direction) Las Vegas - Grand Canyon - Phoenix AZ (Scottsdale) - Albuquerque NM - Oklahoma City OK - Little Rock AR - Atlanta GA - Orlando FL. You could bypass OK and AR and take in Dallas Ft Worth, but Oklahoma City is a nicer town. Houston really doesn't have a lot for tourists.

[castex]

Wow Matt, you seem really cross.
Sorry if I've upset you.
My experiences of NO have been wholly positive. Perhaps they didn't like you. Can't imagine why.

[sidekickdmr]

The whole reason for doing Houston and New Orleans is that i imagine San fran, Vegas, orlando and Miami to be clean/modern and westernised, IE similar to each other.

To make it more of an experience I want to visit a couple of places that have character and charm, as different as possible from a tourist city, for contrast to the above.

I’m tempted to give Houston a miss and just fly direct to New Orleans and stay for a bit longer before heading to Orlando.

Anywhere else i should consider somewhere between Vegas and Orlando that meets the above brief?

[Byff]

sidekickdmr said:

Ok so due to the Zika thing going around at the moment we are thinking of amending our Cancun beach holiday and instead doing something we’ve always wanted to do and travel across America, any excuse


So this is what we are thinking:

- Fly into San Francisco, 2 nights in a nice hotel

- Pick up a hire car from sanfran, something sporty and fun, mustang/vette

- Drive to Vegas with a night in a motel somewhere on the way

- Drop the hire car off in Vegas and stay 3 nights in a nice hotel

- Fly from Vegas to Houston, stay 2 nights in Houston

- Pick up a hire car, something a little more basic and cheap, drive to New Orleans with a motel stop on the way

- Stay 2 nights in New Orleans

- Fly to Orlando, stay 2 nights in Orlando

- Pick up a hire car, something convertible and drive to Miami, no stopover

- 3 nights in Miami in a really nice hotel with a beach/pool etc

- Fly home

Thoughts?

Alternitive city's/towns?

Thanks

SanFran is a good starting point, two days is perfect.

I'd probably drive to Los Angeles for two/three days then drive on to Vegas for two.

Flight to Houston if you're into space stuff, not a lot else there to be honest but it is just a few hours away from Dallas - you could do both in a day. You could pick a car up there and drive to Memphis (or just fly direct from Vegas if you wanted to miss out Houston).

Memphis for two nights then fly/drive (via Atlanta and Nashville) onto Orlando.

Spend as much time in Orlando as you can physically endure theme parks then Miami to finish off.

It's a LOT of driving, so get something comfortable.

[Chris4410]

I would honestly recommend,

Fly into Vegas, spend a few days there and then hire a car and:

Up to Yosemite via death valley.
Over to San Fran, few days to see the sites
San Fran to LA via the pacific coast highway (stop somewhere you fancy about halfway down)
Spend a few days in LA see the sites
Fly to Orlando, few days in the parks
Drive to the Keys, few days relaxing
Drive up to Miami, few days here.

Fly home

We did this last October, best holiday we ever had.

[5potTurbo]

Be careful on 1 way car rentals. There can be considerable fees payable to move the car back to its renting location, e.g. collecting to SF levaing in LV. A lot of car rental places are franchises, so need ot get their cars back, and can charge $300-400 to do so.

Also, check the mileage you're doing vs. places to stay along the way. There's not a whole lot on the roads from 'Frisco to Vegas, as I recall .... or we were unlucky with our route from Yosemite to LV.
We stayed in Tonopah, NV, en route to LV.
Don't stay in Tonopah.
It's a sthole!

[Matt Harper]

castex said:

Wow Matt, you seem really cross.
Sorry if I've upset you.
My experiences of NO have been wholly positive. Perhaps they didn't like you. Can't imagine why.

Not cross at all - New Orleans is somewhere I have to go to frequently for work - it is one of only two cities I work in where I take a firearm with me.
It is a genuinely dangerous place for unwary tourists, who are preyed-upon more in The Big Sleazy than anywhere else in the US.
It's also a filthy, run-down place with some pretty monumental social problems.

I would liken it to taking a vacation in Clydebank, only with slightly better local food.

[unrepentant]

Matt Harper said:

Not cross at all - New Orleans is somewhere I have to go to frequently for work - it is one of only two cities I work in where I take a firearm with me.

Is the other one Indy.

[Matt Harper]

sidekickdmr said:

The whole reason for doing Houston and New Orleans is that i imagine San fran, Vegas, orlando and Miami to be clean/modern and westernised, IE similar to each other.

To make it more of an experience I want to visit a couple of places that have character and charm, as different as possible from a tourist city, for contrast to the above.

I’m tempted to give Houston a miss and just fly direct to New Orleans and stay for a bit longer before heading to Orlando.

Anywhere else i should consider somewhere between Vegas and Orlando that meets the above brief?

I'm not sure I understand what you are asking. The entire United States is 'westernized'. I suspect you mean commercialized, though I may be mistaken there too. All US cities of any stature have relatively modern downtown amenities - most have an 'older' quarter or neighborhood - though 'older' is relative, and very un-old compared to Europe.

Memphis and or Nashville TN is a good suggestion - but again, you need to be aware of your surroundings if you like to venture beyond the commercial centers and tourist attractions. However you would need an appetite for some long, hard Interstate miles.

I'm personally quite fond of Atlanta GA - and the smaller cities of Athens and Savannah are close by - both being very attractive antebellum towns.

I live in Orlando FL - there is also a lot to see and do here (there than theme parks) - in fact you could spend a week just exploring southern GA and Northern FL and still not see it all.

[Marc p]

If Texas is on the agenda, then I'd be looking at doing Austin.

I'd only look at Houston if you're off in March and can go experiance TX2k whilst you're there.

[chopper602]

It's bigger than you think



In the summer I'm flying into Vegas, then wandering around California for a couple of weeks before flying out of San Francisco and I reckon I'll probably end up doing a couple of thousand miles

[docter fox]

I love the west coast and have done this trip about 5 times or so in the previous 5 years... I would fly into SFO, well worth a couple of days, drive down the coast past LA stopping in a few beach towns along the way (don't stop in LA itself, but the beaches nearby are awesome), drive all the way down to San Diego (favourite west coast destination) and then across to vegas for a few nights. You could then fly across to Florida if you wanted but given that there are some very nice beaches on the west coast, I'd save the east coast for a different trip. If that sounds like too much driving, perhaps fly from SFO to LAX and then drive to San Diego and Vegas from there.

[Byff]

That's a good point regarding one-way rental fees.

SanFran to LA is a common rental so you don't normally get stung but it's worth checking the small print. You can google the companies the don't charge extra.

[blearyeyedboy]

sidekickdmr said:

The whole reason for doing Houston and New Orleans is that i imagine San fran, Vegas, orlando and Miami to be clean/modern and westernised, IE similar to each other.

Nothing like each other. Vegas is like a giant Disneyfied playground for adult (not necessarily 18 certificate) activities, and like no other place on earth. It's not all sleazy but a lot is. Shows are spectacular but unless your budget is big it's pricy to do more than a couple, and unless gambling's your thing it doesn't have a lot to offer.

San Fran is a brilliant place to go and like no other US city. Cable cars, fantastic cityscapes, Chinatown.... You could find stuff for a week. Allow most of a day to visit Alcatraz if you go (half old prison, half nature reserve these days). Book a good restaurant for seafood while in Frisco.

Never been to Orlando or Miami, so others will tell you about them.