American west coast

[OhCobblers]

Considering a trip Sep time but possibly earlier in the summer. We don't want to do the whole of the west coast but some fun driving, LA, San Fran, nice but not horribly expensive hotels! Seeing some obvious tourist attractions!

Does anyone have a clue where to start planning or researching this kind of trip?! Thank you!

@TheAbbotOfUnreason
That’s exactly my thinking. There is so much to see in addition to the GC. I honestly think people just look at places they know about and bolt them on to a trip. The USA has a lot to offer and it really is much more enjoyable taken in bite sized pieces.

Before kids and travelling outwith school holidays we used to love just taking a flight and picking up a car and then just heading off wherever we fancied. If we liked somewhere we’d stay a few days, if not we’d move on. Would be even easier now with the internet to sort out accommodation - had some “interesting” motel stops in the 90s, like the one with the guy with a shotgun ranting about tourists (he was probably in the wrong job - we left pretty sharpish) or the one with the “fairy tale themed rooms”.

Theres 3 Grand Canyon areas. The North ridge is quite remote so let’s exclude that.
There’s the West GC which is closer to LVegas but still a couple of hours by car. The glass platform is there.
Then there’s the South rim / Grand Canyon village which is the ‘classic’ GC experience. It’s 6 hours from LV by car with lunch / fuel stops. you can hire bicycles and ride along the rim ( tarmac path ) to see sights , you can walk down into the rim ( 4-5 hour round trip to get to Cedar ridge from South Kaibab Trailhead - other paths are available! ) , don’t even think of walking to the bottom and back.
Stay in Tusayan just outside the GC national park. Plenty of chain hotels to pick from.

I mentioned cycling in my post because there’s a memorable bike ride hiring in downtown SF then cycling to and across the Golden Gate Bridge , down into Sausalito from where you get the ferry back to SF.

LA is vast. We found the area where the Chinese theatre is underwhelming. There’s a Disney park if you fancy and north there is a six flags adventure park (rollercoasters) if you want the senses assaulting.

You’ll be flying out in UK daytime so get standard seats out, but if you’re flying back from the West coast you appreciate upgrading seats on the overnight flight back.

We’ve hired cars with Virgin holidays. You pay for everything in UK , just pick up the car at the airport, often there’s a dedicated desk for Virgin customers.

Depends on how long you have obviously. I've down the sw - fly to vegas, Grand Canyon, Phoenix, San Diego, la, Death Valley , Vegas. And the nw - Seattle, Portland, crater lake, Reno, Lake Tahoe, San Fran, up through the redwoods, Oregon coast and back to Seattle. Both were 2 week trips

If you make it to the south rim of Grand Canyon, if you can afford el Tovar its amazing. I only ate breakfast though, there's a little motel cheaper nearby

@OhCobblers
If you have teenage boys do you really want to do this much sitting in a car? It’s just too much. You can have more holidays snd see great places in the USA. I see no advantage in just trying to see everything in 2 weeks. Of course you don’t see much at all. You just see it out of the window. I really would knock the relentless road trip on the head and do smaller distances so you can enjoy what you find in each area.

You're cramming a lot in and NYC doesn't fit. Will your teens be happy doing so much driving or will you be frustrated they're just playing on tablets?

I would do
SF then 1 way car hire
Monterey
Santa Barbara
LA
San Diego (stay at La Jolla or Mission Beach)
fly to Las Vegas for grand canyon & a show (can view GC from a small plane eg 10 seater if don't want helicopter or to get out or coach trip incl hoover dam)
fly home from there.

Before kids and travelling outwith school holidays we used to love just taking a flight and picking up a car and then just heading off wherever we fancied. If we liked somewhere we’d stay a few days, if not we’d move on. Would be even easier now with the internet to sort out

We did that on our honeymoon road trip. We only booked the first night in advance. Even with the internet, we came close to sleeping in the car on a couple of occasions.

AirBnB is great for this sort of thing.

@Zazdar
And add even more pollution? Why? Who needs LV when you have California?

@TizerorFizz

What are you talking about?

@Zazdar
Aaaah! My mistake! It was the helicopter and flight to Las Vegas that I was referring to. @EwwSprouts mentioned this. I just don’t get it. Apologies for wrong tag.

We did West Coast 7 years ago with dc 17&15.
We flew to Las Vegas so we could go to the Grand Canyon then flew on to SF. We had a beautiful apartment in an old building near the Painted Ladies, Alcatraz is a must as is cycling over the Golden Gate Bridge in to Sausalito.
We then hired a car and drove to Carmel for one night, then on to San Luis Obispo (we backtracked the next day to go to Hearst Castle), Then a night in Santa Barbara which we shouldn’t have bothered with. Four nights in Redondo Beach LA, The Warner studios tour was good fun before finishing in San Diego for some relaxing beach time.
Loved that holiday!
I agree with others that unless you can extend your holiday by 3/4 days NY is best left for another time.

Vegas is good for a couple of days stop off, we found a great apartment hotel with pools, and you can do the flight over the GC from there and visit the Hoover Dam (for your Sugar moment). Bear in mind that you can’t linger in the casinos with children / teens - you can walk through but not stop.

It’s not a stop off. It’s not in California. So there’s nothing worth seeing in Santa Barbara? Really?

@TizerorFizz I mentioned fly to LV because OP might well want to see grand canyon as it's a major attraction and flights from there can be cheaper than SF. Or fly into there and save half a day by clearing immigration three times faster than SFO. I wouldn't choose the city for any other reason with teens.

It’s a 4 hr drive from LA. And on our route it was definitely a stop off.

The OP asked for west coast. It’s not west coast. So it’s not a stop off for the op I would have thought. Cheap flights for a reason.

Well yes, cheap flights can make it a good starting point. And if you’re transiting through there then you can incorporate it into your trip, especially if you want to do a flight over the Grand Canyon.

And as I said before, we did a west coast trip San Diego to San Fran and back to San Diego via Vegas. Almost like Vegas was a stopping off point

@TizerorFizz At least five other posters have said LV / GC can be a reasonable stop off. Your definition of west coast appears to be hug the coast which is fine but for many people flying thousands of miles to get there 'west coast' extends to the near interior (it may be a once in a lifetime trip).

I’ve been to LV. Safe to say it’s now at the bottom of my holiday experiences. I would say im well travelled and I guess I am more into culture and wildlife. I would think everyone I know excluded LV from west coast USA trip.. The op asked for west coast. I hope she can make it to NevadaArizona on another trip but it’s taking time away from the west coast which has so much to offer. Sadly lots of posters don’t look very far beyond very superficial sights and skipping lots of things for the next big attraction. It’s a real shame to do that. With teens you need to factor in driving times vs value of what you are seeing. LV has casinos which are not suitable for teens. Everyone always says you must experience it. We could not wait to get away. It’s not the same as a west coast holiday. If the op has asked about LV, then add it in by all means.

@TizerorFizz I said up thread "I wouldn't choose the city for any other reason with teens." and yes I have been too. Though the cheap food would be a draw with teens . You're making a lot of assumptions based on nothing. On our last trip to California we skipped superficial LA and took in plenty of wildlife and culture including; sea lions at La Jolla, a baseball game, Palomar Observatory, USS Midway, local seafood diners all with a teen.

Yosemite is another area inland which many incorporate. I would just say plan a trip that covers the areas that appeal to you.

I’ve been to LV. Safe to say it’s now at the bottom of my holiday experiences.

Maybe you got stuck on The Strip and didn’t look beyond that for what’s on offer? I’m surprised that you didn’t enjoy a tour of the Hoover Dam (all that lovely concrete gravity dam design) or the Atomic Testing Museum, or use LV as a base for exploring Red Rock canyon or Lake Mead or the Valley of Fire?

FWIW, my worst US trip was to New Orleans, which many people seem to love. That’s a weekend I’ll never get back.

We did a US west coast road trip in 2019 (our last holiday before covid/lockdowns).

Washington
3 nights Seattle - Space Needle, Pike Place, original Starbucks, gum wall, Amazon hq
Oregon
3 nights Portland - Voodoo Donuts, powells bookstore, twilight filming locations, multnomah falls, hood river, mount hood, trillium lake
2 nights Oregon coast - Devils Churn, Thors Well, Heceta Head Lighthouse

California
1 night Jedediah Smith Redwoods state park for giant redwood trees, chandelier tree
2 nights Napa - vineyard tours
3 nights San Francisco - union square, fisherman’s wharf, golden date bridge, Alcatraz, Chinatown, painted ladies, Castro, haight ashbury, coit tower, Lombard street
Drove through Santa Cruz - boardwalk
2 nights Monterey - cannery row, aquarium, 17mile drive, pebble beach
Drove down the coast via big sir all the way to San Luis Obispo - 1night
Drove to solvang for a short visit & carried on to LA
2 nights Anaheim - Disney
2 nights West Hollywood - Griffith observatory, downtown LA, Hollywood sign, shopping, nightlife

You could probably spend 2 full weeks just between San Francisco & Los Angeles. Plenty to see & do to fill all of your days. Los Angeles is fab for teens. They might enjoy Universal Studios & Warner Bros tours aswell as Disney. Walk of Fame is fun & you can check online for movies being filmed, so might see some celebs. Could take in a American football game at the Staples Center depending on their schedule.

I have been to LA, SF & San Diego a few times. You will absolutely love it. And road trips are my favourite kind of holiday.

I would probably agree that you leave NYC for another trip.

and finished in Los Angeles. We visited Portland, Oregon coast (I particularly liked the southern Oregon coast),

That's an awful lot to pack into two weeks OP, but if you're determined that's what you want to do then you could try something like:

Fly to LA (or SF - you could also do the CA bit in reverse)
3 nights LA
1 night Avila Beach
1 night Monterey (I thought Carmel was overpriced and twee)
3 nights San Fran
Fly to Las Vegas
1 night LV
2 nights Grand Canyon + pony trek into canyon?
Drive back to LV and take flight to NYC
3 nights NYC
Fly home

We spent 3 weeks last summer doing CA alone and we still only saw a fraction of it. Personally, I'd ditch Grand Canyon and do NYC on a separate trip, but it's up to you.

If you have teens can you really do that in Sept?? Bear in mind that if you do it in July/Aug it will be very busy indeed, not only with Americans, but also with all the Europeans who had to cancel their trips to CA in 2020 and 2021 and will have rescheduled for this year. You may find it hard to get accommodation as a result.