Hi Californian Mum needed

[triplets]

Hi,
There must be a mumsnetter out there who could help me, we are hoping to go to California in 2007, have been looking for a nice cottage to rent, budget of around £600 a week, can find nothing for that in the popular destinations, unlike Florida where there you are spoilt for choice from £350! We have been before so know it very well, bur want to visit my penpal in Modesto and then have a couple of good bases. Can anyone help, tried cyberentals, holidayrentals, etc.

Hi there, not in california but colorado perhaps I can track something down from this end. Where abouts in CA are you looking for your bases, don't know where Modesto is sorry.

Hello there!
Lovely to hear from you! Never been to Colorado, on my hit list though. Well we have pretty well covered California, but that was in the 90`s with our son who sadly died in 94. So now its a different ball game, as we have 8yr old triplets! Basically we think we would like to have 2 or 3 bases, renting a house. San Fran area so that we could see Karen, Modesto is NOT nice to stay in. Would like to visit Santa Cruz as we never went there before, but its horribly expensive, would very much like to take them to Yosemite, Matthew loved it there, again finding reasonable accomodaton seems hard, even staying say in Mariposa. San Diego area, lots to do there, not Disney as we have been to Florida. What I would really like to do is find the smaller not so well known places that the locals would go to, I would love a cottage with a white picket fence and porch, a deck and a hot tub!So any ideas would be fantastic!

hahahahahahahaaa.
CAT hub2dee because he was/is on hols in San Diego County & he must have found out a lot about affordable self-catering for his family.

You can stay in a Motel 6 for as little as $45/night in the Central Valley, which is well within your budget for Modesto ($45=£30/night). Not self-catering & not that nice, but would be clean & would fit with visiting your friends. There are plenty of other budget motels.

Have you considered staying in a youth hostel in San Diego?

Hi,
Don`t intend actually staying in Modesto, its not that nice, even Karen says that!So somewhere we could meet up or if we had a cottage she could come and stay. Having three kids in tow I like space, they would drive me nuts in a small hotel room, also we would probably have to pay for two rooms, lots of place only sleep 4.

Okay here goes with some websites
www.goin2travel.com/mtodd.htm
www.vacationrentals.com/vacation-rentals/4966.html
www.sandiegocottages.com/oceanbeach.htm

I'm sure there must be plenty more websites, but the first two will give you a starting point. Does your friend in Modesta have access to the regional newspaper, holiday lets often appear in the local press. There are always ones lurking in my one Daily Camera for the Rockies etc etc. Well if you ever want to head this way let me know. My ds's 4 and 2 would definitely keep your three occupied. Let me know what else I can do to help. Will keep surfing for links for you.

have you thought about lake tahoe? lots of vacation rental places there (and gorgeous)

I think you'd be pushing your luck getting a house big enough for you all in SF area for £600/week (many cost that much to rent longterm)

more than your budget and a bit of a drive to modesto but rather nice

{http://www.vrbo.com/55697\admittedly rather suburban but in santa cruz}

try again

\link{http://www.vrbo.com/23841\dodge ridge afordable and close-ish to yosemite but in middle of nowhere)

oh for goodness sakes

Hi all,
Couldn`t get all the links to work, I have looked at those web sites, nothing grabbing me atm. What about resort accomodaton, maybe a 2 bed suite with facilities, pool etc for kids? Just seems so expensive compared to Florida, but I love it far more!

A holiday cottage near Yosemite or King's Canyon would work well for seeing your Modesto friend. I assume you're going in Summer?

Hi,
Yes it would have to be school holidays, so from end of July til beginning of Sept, where do you live?

I live in UK but am only 9 days back from hols in California ; mostly san diego (my hometown), also drove to Sacramento & back.

I tried to find accomodation for a good friend in San Diego a few years back (he needed about 2 months) & it was impossible... really tough to avoid paying thru the nose there. I kip at my dad's so not an issue for me, thank goodness. There are "reasonable" hotels, I could possibly suggest.

Well, I am from Southern Oregon, so not quite California, but asked my friend from San Diego and then asked DH's step-mom's kids from San Franscisco what they thought. My friend just looked at me and asked if I was kidding, and the other people just laughed and laughed and laughed. I know when we went for FIL's surgery in SF 2 years ago we were very very lucky in finding a 2 bedroom apartement with full kitchen that slept 6 for $125 a night(after searching for days for something reasonable), but that was run by a little old lady who was providing cheap lodging for families of patients of the hospital, and you had to have proof someone was a patient of the hospital. The other thing about SF I forgot that they told me is most places charge you for parking, which can be quite expensive running around $15-20 a night. They both suggested changing your budget or standards, I'm afraid. (And having had the unfortunality of having been to Modesto, don't stay there!!!!!!) Good luck, and if you can find anything for cheap, let us all know.

I forgot, friend e-mailed me this link as a good one to find rentals in San Diego , but I looked, and none were close to budget, I'm afraid.

Oh dear, there must be some bargains somewhere, why is it more expensive than Florida? We went in 91,93 and 95 and found it good value. I suppose a package might work out to be better value, but we like to do our own thing.

Because California is cool & Florida is naff, basically!!
Like I said, CAT hub2dee, because he's recently researched all this.

Probably a long shot, but I wondered if maybe you could get into student dormitories during the summer vacation at either of the big universities: sdsu or ucsd .

You would dial 00-1-858-(7 digit number) for ucsd phone numbers & 00-1-619-(7 digit number) for sdsu numbers.

Thanks, will cat hub2dee!

Another idea, we holiday by doing homeswaps, and think they are great! We have had to turn down quite a few people from CA who wanted to come to the UK. Try Intervac or Homelink on the web.

Thats a good idea, thanks!