[cornishfrogboy]

Originally Posted by Batman1

It will I guess come down to what's reasonable in our timeframe.

Looking like definitely 3 days in SFO, then onwards probably down the coast at this stage and end up in San Diego for a few days.
Yosemite looks both expensive to stay within the park, and appears limited in availability, even a year out.

Would like to do LA to see the famous sights but not interested in parks, but universal might be on the cards, or some sort of theme park day.

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It is a huge state and there are so many interesting options. What I would suggest, given your thoughts on LA parks is that if you are not intending on those parks, you use the i5 at a very carefully selected time in order to minimise traffic... like at night.

I am aware that you have read my trippie and I thank you for your positive comment. Our exit strategy, i.e Back up from San Diego, a night on RMS Queen Mary and then the sightseeing from Santa Monica worked incredibly well.. and in so doing placed us very close to LAX. You will also probably find that LAX is a far better value departure point financially than San Diego when it comes to buying flights.
One thing is for sure, I would have hated to have driven the 6-700 miles from San Francisco to San Diego and then be faced with a drive back in order to fly home!

P.S. I have been working. The spreadsheet will be sent when I get home... from more work.