First time

[emmab]

Looking for any advice, we are regulars at Disney world and Disneyland paris, but next year we are starting by visiting our daughter in Oklahoma (my 40th and her 21st) then travelling upto California. Want to call in at Las Vegas, maybe go through Death Valley and then onto LA as we want to visit Disney and universal.
Can any one recommend any where we should see on way up that I havntvthought about and thinking 5/6 days in LA and want to be near most things so looking at accommodation, quite like a apartment or villa but this is all new to me, help

[PrincessBower]

Death Valley isn’t really what you would call “on the way” to LA from Vegas...it’s a good 2 hour or so Drive North West, but it’s definately worth it. It’s a large site so you’ll need to plan out what you want to see as you have to drive between the main bits within the park itself.
I can offer much advice in the way of LA itself, but we stayed in Carmel by the sea (not far from SF) and Santa Barbara whicwere both lovely, but may be too far out of your way.

In the other direction, if you’re driving from Oklahoma will find the scenery beautiful in New Mexico & Arizona. We stopped off in Tucson which made a great base for a couple of days seeing Tombstone & the Arizona Sonora desert museum.

[emmab]

Hi,

Thank you, we are up for travelling and prefer to see what’s really interesting even if out of our way a bit,
Which way would you go, as we have always wanted to go to Las Vegas (quickly) but in California as we don’t know it at all where would be nice positioned well to all the parks and other places to see and would you recommend any villa hotels etc

[jdouds]

Hi just to get some basics set out . Oklahoma to vegas is a 16 hour drive (1100) miles. So we would start of with what do you want to see and how long have you got which is the important starting place for us to give the best advice.
Initial thoughts would be fly to vegas. Then perhaps Grand Canyon and Death Valley whilst staying in vegas. Another well trodden route would be after flight to vegas and trip to canyon then head to Death Valley followed by route north west and into yosemite for a couple of days , then over to San Fran or Monterey and then down the coast to Santa Barbara and LA
Keep in mind LA is a sprawling mass of about 100 miles across with traveling internally sometimes horrendous . For most 2 days Disney and 1 universal , the parks are much smaller than Florida .
Hope this gives you some ideas and of course with some more info we will all help more.

[400ixl]

Disneyland is in Anaheim which is south of LA. Other than going to places like Long Island it is not really convinient for anywhere.

Other places like Hollywood, Santa Monica, Universal etc are all a 1-2 hour drive from Anaheim. You are much better off with a split stay in LA.

Disney itself can be fully covered in a couple of days.

Death Valley is a fantastic location and worth a overnight stay. If looking at a route you need to make sure you come out at the Lancaster side and not Baker or Barstow. This way you see more of the NP and can go and visit the near ghost town of Darwin as well.

Driving across from Oaklahoma then you can stop off at the Grand Canyon South rim which is worth a night.

[landandword17]

If by villa you mean Florida style villa I’m afraid you won’t find anything as big with pool etc in California for the same price. Airbnb in legal in many parts of California, though illegal in others. You will find apartments, guest houses and the occasional Florida style villa on there. There’s no one spot in California that is central enough that you can stay there for a while and use it as a base to explore so most people find hotels most economical and change to a new location rather than attempt to commute.

Have a play around on google maps to see what the journey will look like because I think you’re vastly underestimating the sheer scale of the place and the distances involved as most of us did when we first starting researching the west coast.

[PrincessBower]

Sorry, I meant to say I can’t offer much advice about LA, other than to agree with the others: it’s very spread out (and very busy traffic wise) and you would be better splitting your stay depending on what you want to see.

[emmab]

Thank you, think the main reason for California was to see Disney world and universal but wanted to see a few other parts, defiantly think we will drive past the Grand Canyon.

[emmab]

Trying to figure if there’s much between Oklahoma and the Grand Canyon any one any thoughts as we are very unaware of what’s around this area

[jdouds]

Petrified forest national park. Amarillo. Not sure what else, hopefully others will know