West Coast Road Trip - LA/Vegas/Grand Canyon

[YankeeZulu]

I’ve just started planning our big west coast road trip for my 40th next year. We’re flexible with dates and can take up to 3 weeks. So far I’ve planned to fly in to San Francisco, stay there for a few nights and drive down to LA with stops in Monterey, Cambria and Santa Barbara. We’ll stay in LA for a few days to do Disney and Universal for the DC’s. My plan was to then drive to Vegas for a night, then over to the Grand Canyon and back up through Death Valley, Mammoth Lakes and Yosemite with various overnight stops before driving back to SF to fly home. But I can’t make any sense of the LA/Vegas/Grand Canyon bit. It all seems a really long way apart with nowhere obvious to stop en-route. Is it really too far to drive from LA to Vegas. Should I plan to stop or take the hit with a long drive. Any help or suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Yes dc were 18 and 20 and it covered all their favorite programmes and films. Lot more intimate with a real person guiding us.
Unfortunately HP ride was closed at universal which was what we really wanted which didnt help.

Dont get me wrong we enjoyed Universal, just think Warner bros had the edge as an experience for all of us.

18 and 20 are considered adults in the uk.

No offence but might not be as easily bored as teenagers with raging hormones and short attention spans would be

I just think genuinely who would also want to do a 10hr car journey. No one and freeways if you are not used to them are an experience in themselves and not a good one.

But they werent legally of age to drink

Thanks for all the responses. Good to see lots of people think 3 weeks is doable. To all those who didn’t like Vegas, I think we won’t know unless we try. We’re only staying 1 night. I’m more than happy not to gamble and the DC’s are very keen to go for a wander around all the hotels. Plan is 3 night in SF. Alcatraz and GG bridge and recover from jet lag! 5 days driving down to LA. Plans for whale watching in Monterey, zip line

Aargh! Pressed post by accident! Zip line in big sur, surfing lessons and various other things so there will be plenty of getting out of the car. 3 nights in LA and was planning to stay in a Disney hotel to do Disney and another hotel in LA closer to other things we want to do. 1 night in Vegas to see what it’s all about and then a week or so driving back up through GC, Mammoth Lakes and Yosemite with a couple of nights in each. DC are used to long drives and they are very involved in the planning and know the distances between in each stopover. Holiday will either be next summer holidays or Easter. I realise it will be hot, hot, hot in the summer but with Easter we run the risk of Yosemite not being very doable because of bad weather so we are still weighing that one up.

Oh, and we are not necessarily too bothered about staying in a different hotel every night. We did an 8 day road trip around northern Scotland. DC’s loved the adventure of staying in a different place every night and I deliberately varied the accommodation to make it more interesting. Packing cubes were our friend!

Sounds like a great itinerary - book early for alcatraz and accommodation in the parks.

Hiya earlier this year we did a 3 month road trip ( hitting 23 States and over 9,000 miles) and it was wonderful. We have done the places you are talking about 3 times now and some points to think about.
Death Valley to Yosemite.....you can not use the Tioga pass route for huge amounts of the year due to snow it's often closed September ( first snow) to May ( Snow melt) so the trip from Death Valley to Yosemite takes a gruelling amount of time as you have to go South round the bottom of the mountains and all the way back up to Yosemite. We were used to very long drives by then having spent 2 months in Australia before hitting the US, but it's a long and boring drive.
Accommodation in Yosemite and Grand Canyon gets booked up over a year in advance so you need to get on the ASAP
Highway 1 Monterey to LA? It's still closed off about a 3rd of the way down from Monterey due to an Enormous landslide a few years ago ( check out the pictures on line) there is a one lane road that goes across but it goes through an activity military base so can be closed with no notice. You really need to research your options on this drive as it's a real pain if you don't have a plan on how to get round the road closure.
We have been Whale Watching in Santa Barbara with the same company 4 times and every time saw Marine Wildlife. Pm me if you want info on them.
Death Valley in the summer? It's one of my favourite places on Earth we visited 3 times in 18 months....however it is hotter than you can possible imagine in the summer and many rental companies will not let you drive through there during the summer. Fuel is VERY expensive there and there are only 2 gas stations so fill up in Pahrump before you enter the park area. Also you carry MUST plenty of water https://www.nps.gov/deva/faqs.htm

Feel free to PM me if you like OP as I've got all sorts of info stashed away....for when we do it again 

MissCherry

I am GREEN with envy, that sounds amazing!

The behind the scenes tour of Alcatraz is worth paying extra for

Your itinerary sounds great. Just be prepared for not being able to get to Yosemite in the summer either as the whole park was closed this year due to wildfires. Maybe have a back up option ready.
Highway one is completely open now and has been since the summer. We drove it all the way in August.

Does that happen often?

It was closed due to catastrophic flooding in the spring when we were there but yes it's very rare for the park to be closed the NPS have very good websites and the information is kept up to date www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/conditions.htm

You must also remember the bear risk is very real in most of the Parks and it's not you that's at risk but your vehicle and ultimately the bear who will be relocated or euthanised if they break into vehicles because people don't follow the rules.

Some photos of out trip the difference between the photos of the Yosemite Falls shows how much rain there was it was terrible and cause so so much damage

I think wildfires are pretty common in the summer, but they're not usually bad enough to close the park. You might just have smokey conditions when you visit. Just something to consider.

If Easter is April, Yosemite is ok. I think SF is great. It has lots of things to see.

We never took our DDs to theme parks. They didn’t ask to go either. We prefer other things of which there are plenty in the USA! Each to their own!