Fly-drive camper van holidays in US - Anyone done one?

[Portofino]

I have a friend who lives in California who keep asking us to come visit. She lives in the Sonoma valley, and has a job marketing wine and olive oil so I am quite keen to go, maybe next year.

If we going to fly all that way though, I'd like to make a trip of it, spend a few days in San Francisco (long on my dream list) and see a bit of the coastline/countryside.

Dd is mad keen to do a camper holiday after seeing a brand new VW one at the showroom, when dh went to collect his company car. It was lovely (and expensive). I beleive Virgin do fly drive holidays where you can rent a Winnebago, all-mod cons thing.

But where do you stop? Do you have to plan campsites? How to you go into town/shopping etc with a behemoth camper van?

Any advice gratefully received.

We are doing one this summer! I'll let you know how we get on. We are hiring an RV from Cruise America.

We have done a lot of planning around campsites. I am also rather assuming there will be a lot of out of town mall like places with space for a rather huge RV.

We are going to LA first and staying in a hotel while we the dc enjoy Disney and then train to Seaworld then picking up the RV south of San Diego. After that it's countryside all the way. Yellowstone, Grand Canyon etc.

I believe you can also rent a tiny car and you just hitch it on the back of the massive beast and off you go...

Thanks! I will be most interested to hear how you get on! So you are booking the campsites in advance?

Yes we are booking campgrounds this week in Grand Canyon and Yellowstone. We are asking some US friends for their recommendations. In Las Vegas there are these huge places which are not exactly cute and cosy but could be good fun.

After living in Africa for years, I'm sure it will all seem remarkably well organised wherever we end up.