American Fly drive holidays

[dogwlllwalk]

Hi, can I have some advice please. We are considering an American Fly drive holiday this summer. To include things like San Francisco, grand canyon, Yosemite las vagus etc.
How is it best to organise this?
Do you go with a company like freedom destinations? ( please tell me who is best/ cheapest) or do you book Flights and do own planning??
It's for a family with 3 children ( 2 teens and 1 primary age)
This would be a big holiday for us. but obviously would like to keep price down.
Thank you in advance to anyone who can give advice or some this type of holiday.

We book everything separately ourselves using a fee-free credit card (Nationwide Clarity in my case).

There’s usually no additional one way charge for car hire if you pick up in California and drop off in Nevada so flying into San Francisco and out of Las Vegas would make sense for your itinerary. How long do you have?

The Grand Canyon National Park is a 5 hour drive from Las Vegas. There are options to see the West rim which is closer to Las Vegas which you might find sufficient.

Yosemite is amazing but you need to book your accommodation as early as possible -now may already be too late for this summer, although somewhere a bit further out like Groveland may have availability. You also need to book your entry into the park in advance these days as well because it’s so busy.

A good idea would be to look at all the trips the various companies offer for inspiration about where you’d like to stay and visit.

Staying in self catering accommodation helps to keep the costs down. We transport the fridge essentials from place to place in a supermarket ice box with frozen bottles of water to keep everything cool.

I've done 3 road trip holidays in California and I've always worked out where I want to go, then do research to see how many days I want to stay there for and then book car hire, accommodation and flights myself. Google maps is great for working out distance and seeing what there is to do.

How long do you have for the trip? What are your interests?

Following! We want to this as well but in 2026

Does anyone else have Global Entry?

Id rather visit San Diego than San Francisco though

we are thinking about 2 weeks so 14-15 days.

We were thinking of a loop.
San diago also looks great. We probably need to get a map and work out best placed to go really.
I did do a trip as a teen starting LA down to San diago then phoenix last vagus grand canyon various parks death valley, mountains then down California coast to San Francisco and back to LA.
Would like to get in as much as possible as so much to see and this will be a one off. Just unsure how to actually organise it without help from a company.

We havent been in a while but even 20 years ago (pre informative internet) it was easy to travel independantly in the US. On many of our journeys we didnt book ahead but it may be different in the internet age. The difficult bit is deciding where to go....

Could do something like this:
San Francisco 2 nights
Lake Tahoe 1 night - could take a detour to Bodie Ghost Town off the 395 to Yosemite
Yosemite 2 nights
Bishop 1 night - drive through Death Valley to get to Vegas.
Las Vegas 2 nights
Grand Canyon 2 nights
Las Vegas 1 night
LA/San Diego 3 nights - I'd only pick one out of these cities unless you have more time.

Trailfinders have been helpful so far. Even for giving basic advice! We haven’t booked via them yet though.

My other trips have been:
San Francisco - 4 nights
Yosemite - 2 nights
Monterey - 2 nights
Pismo Beach - 1 night
LA - 4 nights
San Diego - 4 nights

And
LA - 1 night
29 Palms - 2 nights
Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Park - 3 nights
Yosemite - 1 night
Lake Tahoe - 1 night
Sacramento - 1 night
San Francisco - 1 night
Monterey - 2 nights
LA - 3 nights

2 nights San Francisco
2 nights Yosemite
1 night Lone Pine
Drive through/around Death Valley to Las Vegas
2 nights Las Vegas
2 nights Grand Canyon South Rim
1 night en route to Palm Desert
3 nights Palm Desert - one day in Joshua Tree and one going up the aerial tramway
2 nights San Diego

LAX is horrible to drive into/out of.

I did something very similar as a teen.
We hired an RV through Cruise America, and then stayed at KOA campgrounds in each area we visited.

We flew to Phoenix in Arizona where we had one night in a hotel, then collected the RV. We also hired packs containing everything from bedding to cutlery.

We did a big circuit taking in the major cities in California and Nevada.

The campsites were booked in advance- in LA for example we did 5 nights as so much to do there, Las Vegas we only did 2 nights.

All the supermarkets and attractions had specific parking for RVs so the driving was easy.

As far as I'm aware, everything from flights, to RV to campsites were booked separately.

We did 3 weeks there- it was an amazing experience.

Used this company to organise it - here. They were really helpful and the accommodation they organised was good.

It's easy to organise as fly drive holiday and you do not need any travel agent.
Book your national park accommodation now, Xanterra is the official site.
We flew into SFO and flew out of LV as we visited south west national parks but it will be very hot in summer.
SFO -Yosemite / back to Pacific coast highway and drive along PCF to LA or even San Diego may work.