San Francisco/Los Angeles/Las Vegas this summer

[ThroughThickandThin]

So excited, just booked flights and hotels for two weeks in the summer. Dh and I and two teen Dses. Staying at San Luis Obispo on drive between San Fran and Los Angeles. Then driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

We have a few things on our to-do, must be seen list, but getting a bit bogged down and confused trawling the guide books etc. So would love some help .

So far have Alcatraz, cycling across Golden Gate Bridge, Hearst Castle. DSes want to do theme parks and water parks as well. Hoover Dam??

What is unmissable? (decided there's no time - very sadly for me - to get to Grand Canyon). Thinking of sports events, shows, as well.

Would love some advice.

We did a similar trip last summer, OP and it was great!

One of the most memorable things we did was book tickets to see the SF Giants play baseball at the AT&T Stadium.

Easy to book tickets online, easy to get to from central San Francisco on public transport and lots of friendly fans to explain the intricacies to us! The view from (most) seats across the bay is also beautiful.

If it was me I would give Vegas a miss and stay in California. When we did California we did SF, LA, San Diego, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, Death Valley and Palm Springs. We stayed in San Luis Obispo, but couldn't afford the Madonna inn. We stayed in a cheap motel but ate in the Madonna Inn. You must go there.

On the drive up to Death Valley we visited an old silver mining ghost town - Calico, and found that interesting.

Thanks for prompt posting, I will be happily making notes to look everything up later.

onepotato SF Giants sound great, I'll see if I can find their schedule.

bunbaker hmm, we've actually booked a hotel in Las Vegas with flights out from there. We have two nights and I just thought we'd be blown away by the sheer Americanism of it all. We are staying at Apple Farm in San Luis Obispo, but I have heard of the Madonna Inn so good to hear it's worth a visit. Is there amything you can recommend we do there? I keep reading about Pffeifer park but not quite sure where that is.

The Giants fixture list is published around now, from memory. In terms of fixtures, it is a bit like a test match structure - we went to the first night of a four night run against the Seattle Giants, so there seem to be lots of games!

The Neon Museum in Las Vegas was something we also enjoyed. It's in the Downtown area. Book the nighttime tours, when everything is lit up.

Just found it onepotato it says they are playing 'Nationals' when we are there. Any idea if that's a team, or a national competition? I didn't know it's played in test match format-I thought they had a strange schedule with a match every day.....! Neon Museum going on the list.

It's a long time since I was in California - 1986, so I have no idea what else there is to see and do in SLO. We just stopped there en route between SF and LA. I have just looked at the Madonna Inn website and it looks like it is still worth visiting. It has "unusual" decor. Back then it was considered quite wacky.

In LA we did Disneyland and Universal Studios before heading out to Palm Springs.

Gawd I am the least knowledgeable person to ask!

I think that there are geographic leagues and the top teams in each league then play each other?

Are you driving PCH down to SLO and then onto LA or are you taking the fast route? Because SLO is a pretty dull town but I LOVE the whole Silicon Valley, Santa Cruz, Monterey/Carmel and then PCH down run. We've done it several times now and it never gets old.

The drive from LA To LV is VERY boring.

Slow route SethRogen, I think. We have friends we are staying with near San Francisco but I think they are Silicon Valleyish - Palo Alto?, before we head down to LA via SLO. But this is why I need help, I'm pretty clueless and think everything looks great and I want to do it all. I need tips so we don't miss out, as we have such limited time really.

We drove from LA to LV a few years ago, via Monument Valley. Amazing.

In that case, I would aim to stop at Carmel/Monterey for the night (or two) between your friends in Palo Alto and heading south. Give yourself plenty of time to do the scenic drive. A night in Big Sur is well worth it too. It really is an amazingly beautiful stretch of road.

Our honeymoon in 2012 was LA, Vegas, Yosemite, Sonoma, SF, Big Sur, Santa Barbara, back to LA.

Highlights were cycling along Venice beach, all of Yosemite, Alcatraz, Post Ranch Inn (Big Sur) PCH, including 16 mile drive and Carmel. Whatever you do you'll have a bloody awesome time. Try not to plan too much, take a good guide, you can read it on long stretches of driving and stop when something takes your fancy. Julia Pfiffer state park, waterfalls and beach are lovely. Again, you'll find them en route and stop if you wish, just give yourselves plenty of time. Pack picnics to have on the beaches, you can go for miles without seeing a shop.

It's the Washington Nationals, btw.
Sounds like a fab trip!

Thanks Janet. We might be seeing Giants v Nationals then. . I'm so bloody excited, just been googling and Google earthing everything everyone's mentioned. I'm going to be up all night. Calico looks eerie!

We did this a number of years ago. Flew into San Francisco and drove down the coast through LA on to San Diego then to the Grand Canyon and on to Las Vegas and home from there. It was my best holiday ever. We only booked hotels in San Fran and Las Vegas and got motels as we went the rest of the time. We spent a night in SLO and loved it. Also loved Carmel/Monterey. Santa Barbara was beautiful. I didn't like LA but am glad we went. Grand Canyon is breathtaking and Las Vegas is bonkers. You will have a ball!

For live music, look at what's going on at Mountain Winery in Saratoga when you're at Palo Alto. It has big names and very small names, but I LOVE that place. You have dinner over the terrace looking over the whole of Silicon Valley whilst the sun goes down and then head to the ampitheater for the music.

We visited San Francisco recently, it's utterly beautiful and beguiling! Definitely visit Alcatraz, you can book online in advance if you know which day you want - allow about 2-3 hours for the boat trip and audio tour around the former prison. Fisherman's Wharf is a good place to see the sea lions but is a little sea-sidey, though does have some great restaurants. Take a tram ride from Fisherman's Wharf over to downtown/business district, it costs $6 pp per journey, and takes you up and down the amazing streets, hanging off the side of the tram - brilliant fun. Head to Lombard Street, which is the most zig-zaggy (!) street in the city and you can walk up/down it as cars try to navigate it. The Golden Gate bridge is stunning, if you head to the park under the bridge, park your car then walk up through the nature reserve bit, you can get easy access to the bridge and walk as far as you want across it. There's a fab little drinks/snacks place called The Warming Hut under the bridge, which serves really nice coffee. If you can, drive across the bridge to Sausalito or further up into Muir Woods where there are some of the oldest giant redwood trees in the world - it's so peaceful and beautiful. The Hoover Dam is definitely worth a stop if you're passing that way, it's about 20 miles out of Vegas. The Grand Canyon is simply breathtaking, especially at sunrise if you can bear to get up early! Have an amazing trip!

Thanks all . Some fab ideas to ponder and research. Just got to get over my nervousness of flying now, not helped by recent events.

We are doing a very similar trip with our teens (almost 14+16) in July but have 18 nights which allows us to add in two nights at Huntington beach for a bit of luxury and surf culture, and two nights on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

In San Francisco planning to do a Segway tour in the golden gate park (sign up to www.Goldstar.com for great discounts- like groupon here). Hope to do the night time Alcatraz tour, and explore Chinatown.

We managed to book one of the rock rooms the Madonna Inn after hearing about it here on Mumsnet and hope to go to Pismo beach and do a half day kayaking on the ocean to explore caves www.centralcoastkayaks.com and see the seals on Cambria beach.

In LA plan to go to the Dodgers to see a baseball game and spend a day at Universal Studios and do a tour of Warner Brothers (lure of the Friends and Big Bang Theory studios in particular)

Then from Huntington beach planning to go on a Whale/Dolphin watching trip. www.newportwhales.com

Long day drive from there to the South Rim (7 hours) where we are staying in a National park lodge right on the rim of the canyon itself. DD will celebrate her 16th birthday with sunrise over the Grand Canyon which should be pretty special. Then stop at Hoover Dam on the way to Las Vegas.

In Las Vegas again hoping to get discounted tickets for a Cirque show via Goldstar or one of the many other discount websites for LV as for 4 of us it is big $$$ for any of the shows. ww.earlyvegas.com Planning to spend the second night just watching the fountains/ lights/ madness in general of the strip! www.lasvegas-entertainment-guide.com/free-las-vegas-shows.html

We have also looked at the outlet malls in LA and Vegas as my two are determined to stock up with Nike, Vans, Abercrombie in particular.

We booked in October and have been stupidly excited ever since. The only downside is that the dollar is rising all the time against Sterling making it more and more expensive :(

Thanks so much 3nations I had totally forgotten about Segways. We have been on them several times and one of the few activities the DSes actively love to do with us. Would love to see cirque in Vegas. And looking forward to shopping in LA.

We decided in the end that we just couldn't squeeze in the Grand Canyon. Our trip is is slightly complicated by having to fly home via New York as we have old friends with our godchildren there, and precious opportunity to visit them in general, - and they havent let us get away with being in the States and not visiting. It'll be lovely but has put time pressure on what I am looking at as our 'California Road Trip'!

Hope you have a great trip. Everyone seems to.

We did this and did a tour of LA/Beverley Hills/celebrities' home in a vintage convertible cadillac, it was fantastic!
Oldies tours

I did the Warner Bros tour and it was great.

Universal studios was loads of fun.

I forgot the Grand Canyon - how could I?! I knew it would be big. However, it really was just incredible. I'd say unmissable.

Have a look at helicopter tours from vegas that'll fly past Hoover dam and through grand canyon - it'd be s shame to go all that way and be so close and not see it

Book Alcatraz ASAP - we missed out because my booking timed out halfway through and then couldn't get any availability

Look into some gold rush ghost towns. We went to Bodie, which is just North of the entrance to Yosemite (vegas end not SF end of you get me) - excellent for a wander around for a couple of hours

Go to some vinyards. All of them will do a tasting. We stayed in Paso Robles (San Luis Obispo area) and did some tastings round there

The biggest outlet mall is at Camarillo, just north of LA and between SLO and LA. I wasted a few hours wandering around there when DH was hungover (stayed round the corner to it)

And at serious risk of outing myself here - be very careful of the traffic in LA and allow plenty of time to get places. We flew into vegas and out of LA, and what on paper was our shortest journey of the trip, 50 miles to the airport, took 6.5 hours and we almost missed our flight home. Check in closed 5 mins after we arrived - I was seriously stressed.

I'd love to do it again in double the time, I really would. We had similar restrictions to you (friends to visit at the start of the break, wedding at the end) that we needed to fit in with.

We did this trip last year with our 12yr old DD and 10yr old DS.
We had 3 days/ 4 nights in San Francisco. Day 1 tram ride to diner for American breakfast, then boat ride around the bay with audio. Then a walk around (panicking as we thought we were going to be unable to get our tickets for the Alcatraz tour) we had to book a triple thing 4 weeks before we went as Alcatraz tickets were sold out. I can't for the life of me remember what the 3rd thing was! We then had a bit of a mooch around Fisherman's wharf.
Day 2: we walked from our hotel through the civic centre to the painted ladies. Had a snack there and then walked on to Hait Ashbury for Ben and Jerries. Then walked on to Golden Gate park and went to the Japanese tea rooms for sandwiches and a drink. Came out of the park at the wrong exit and got a bit lost ending up having to look for the correct road for the bus. A bus driver held le us- it was the Muni. We then bussed to the Golden Gate Bridge and decided what the heck, we're here, we have to walk across it!
We then walked along the Presidio and followed the coast back along to Fisherman's Wharf. Headed up to China town for tea and walked the last 3 miles to the hotel. We saw the palace of fine arts and the wave organ by the yacht club too. In total, we walked 16 miles that day! It was fantastic and we saw so much as we were on foot. Eg, we had not heard about the civic centre at all in any of our research so to stumble upon it at 7 am was awesome!
The benefit we got from having done the bay tour and audio guide was brilliant, we were able to locate ourselves at all times then.
We managed to squeeze Lombard street and Coit tower into day 1 whilst we were collecting tickets for Alcatraz.
Day 3 we had a leisurely breakfast and went back to coit tower and went in, did Telegraph hill again (the parrots were hiding) and then walked along the front to pier 39. We went to see the sea lions- dear lord they stank so much that I had to leave my family as I was gagging! And we did some boats in the harbour which we got on free with our National Parks permit (bought for $80 at Alcatraz- similar to National trust).
Following day got Bart back to SFO and collected the car. Drove to Yosemite. Wow! 2 nights there.
Then 1 night in Lone Pine
Then 2 nights in Vegas. We all agreed we wish we had spent longer in Yosemite and then a night in Boulder as per our original plan but MiL said we had to do Vegas as it was amazing. It was amazing to us that we walked 10 miles along the strip on our only full day there. We went to the sign at one end in the morning and went to the stratosphere in the afternoon. It is so hot that we were going from one hotel foyer to another and walking through shops to cool down, it was utterly boring as there was nothing to do there. We did like the water display at the Biaggio though.
From there we drove to the Grand Canyon and had 2 nights in Tusayan. Up at 4am for the sunrise and then drove back into California. We did some of Route 66 and stopped at Barstow for the night. We went to Calico too but it was expensive for what was really just old fashioned gift shops and so hot!
Next day drove to LA and visited the Griffith observatory (from there we could see the Hollywood sign) and then drove to our Hotel 2 blocks back from Santa Monica Beach. We pre booked parking and then didn't use the car while we were there, bought a sight seeing bus tour for 2 days. Day 1 did the city and Beverly Hills. Day 2 got bus out to Marina Del Ray and then walked back to Santa Monica. About 5 miles. We liked that :). We saw the La Brea tar pits whilst out there. That was interesting and not too costly for the museum.
Then drove up the pacific highway to San Simeon. We stopped at the Maddonna Inn for cake. I wish we had booked to stay there overnight rather than San Simeon as it was meh. The elephant seals were ok to look at but I loved the kitsch of the Madonna Inn. The following day we headed up towards San Francisco. It was a long drive and the weather was drawing in, very cloudy. We decided to go and park near the palace of fine arts and take night time pictures. It was dark when we got back to San Francisco and the Police moved us on from the parking area at the Presidio so we couldn't get a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge. We then spent the night in the airport awaiting our early flight home.
It was an amazing holiday and we would all do it again in a heart beat (apart from Vegas!).
I'm jealous of you going :)

We did this last year. Stop at Carmel if you can, it's beautiful.