[landandword17]

I asked my mother in law. She booked with Virgin Holidays, the actual tour was run by another company but she can’t remember their name. They were on the 15 night Wonders of the Golden West for £3200 each. She said on booking the itinerary said “Holiday Inn *or similar” and they always ended up in “similar”. She also said the coach was too big to do a lot of scenic routes a car could do like Big Sur and Death Valley and when they were on scenic routes such as over the Golden Gate Bridge or into Yosemite only the front few rows were oohing and ahhing and the rest couldn’t see as much.

I asked her if she could go back what she’d so differently. She said she would map out each itinerary to see the journey times as she had no idea of the distances before booking. She would only go with a company that guaranteed the exact hotel on booking and she would want everything included such as national park entry, sightseeing in each city. She got a quote from Trailfinders which was way out of budget but she said they had some of the top companies that used 4star or higher hotels and had a slower pace but they were very expensive. £6000 each at the time. Trailfinders also told her the more expensive the tour the higher the average age of passenger on board.

If she had £12,000 she’s still not sure a coach is the best way to see the scenery. She says she would be more likely to do 2 fly drives, one focusing on the coast and one on the parks. She’d also consider a rail vacation as she’s done them in Europe and found them more relaxing than a coach.

Finally, she said you don’t have control over where you stop for lunch and snacks and it was all greasy, fast food so she would budget in a trip to a supermarket to get healthy snacks to bring along to avoid the food at the rest stops.

Hope that help.