Vegas /California Road Trip Itinerary

[Lardychops]

SO EXITED!!
We just used out Avios points and upgrade vouchers (no brainer -it’s amazing!!) to book flights -2 weeks apart - in and out of Vegas next October!!!
This is our itinerary -

Fri/Sat Nights Vegas -(arrive at night so just one full day) and pick up hire car

Sun -Drive to Mammoth Lakes via Death Valley

Mon/Tues -Mammoth Lakes

Weds -Drive the Tioga pass through Yosemite -weather permitting as won’t be able to put tyre chains on a hire car- to San Francisco

Thurs/Fri -San Fran

Sat/Sun - Monterrey/ Carmel/ Big Sur

Mon- Santa Barbara

Tuesday -LA

Weds - Drive back to vegas

Thursday - West Rim Grand Canyon and Skywalk

Friday - Vegas

Sat - home

Well aware it’s a lot of driving which isn’t a problem for us. We want to cover a lot of ground and will share/both love road trip driving.

Any tips, advice, suggestions , hidden gems, thoughts of must- dos that aren’t immediately obvious, surprises you had along the way, and are willing to share would be greatly appreciated!

TIA x

If you are doing the SF-LA drive, I absolutely recommend staying a night at the Madonna Inn, and visiting Hearst Castle

@Oriunda beat me to it! Both of these are brilliant.

We've done this kind of trip a few times- also with points.

There are no one way fees with lots of the car hire companies when you do a CA and Nevada rental so use that to your advantage.

One trip, we flew into and out of Vegas but got a cheap internal flight up to San Francisco, picked the car up in downtown SF and worked our way back to Vegas - focused on the mountains.

Another trip, we flew into Vegas picked up car and flew home from San Francisco - did more coast.

Another trip we flew into and out of Vegas but stayed south. We went to south rim grand canyon, across the desert to Palm Springs. San Diego, LA then back.

Availability to the west coast with avios is often easiest for Vegas - as you too have discovered. It means bizarrely my dc have been to Vegas a lot!

Remember it is cheap to change avios flights - like £40- so worth have a look to see if you can do open-jaw if this works better for you. Will depend on club availability i imagine though.

I should add, that if I were going back i would do the canyons. All our trips were summer - it was boiling - so it ruled out Zion and the like.

I've have done a fab Arizona winter trip though into and out of Phoenix where we went to Sedona, Grand canyon (there was snow), monument valley and Tuscon amoungst others - a big loop.

We did Zion, Bryce, Arches, Canyonlands in February one year - deep snow in Bryce but it looked fabulous.

I'd scale back and do either Mammoth Lakes, Death Valley and Yosemite or west coast beaches with only 2 weeks. I agree with everyone else to leave out LA and SF. We travelled a lot of the west but we had longer. I hated LA, It's a horrible place. I liked SF for the bridge and Alcatraz but it's a long way to add it on.

I loved Mammoth Lakes, make time to do some hikes there and in Yosemite. It's amazing. You need to stay in the area for a couple of nights, same for Death Valley. You can't drive to the best sights in Mammoth Lakes and Yosemite, you have to walk. IMO it's a waste of time going if you're just going to drive through.

We did a very similar trip years ago in the summer.
We really wished we'd focused on national parks rather than cities. The parks are amazing but the cities felt dangerous and without the charm that the European cities we'd visited before.
Alcatraz was brilliant though.
I would definitely change the end part to stay at the Grand Canyon rather than going back and forth to Vegas. We stayed at bright angel lodge.

We used to live in S California. We loved it but it was a while ago when it was much cheaper!
I agree with everyone saying that your original itinerary was too hectic. I’ve been to nearly all the places mentioned - I’d minimise time in Las Vegas, it’s worth a quick look but nothing more. If you can get tickets to see something at The Sphere then I’d highly recommend it. We saw U2 and were blown away by the show.
Death Valley is amazing. I also love Zion, Bryce Canyon, Joshua Tree National Park and the Sequoias ( can’t remember the name of the park) are all incredible but slightly less known places like Red Rock, Rainbow bridge or vermillion cliffs etc are all amazing too. I love US National Parks. They are so well done and I love the way they cater for everyone.
I liked SF for a quick visit and San Diego but LA is too much traffic.