PCH/S.F/Yosemite/Death Valley/G.C/L.V/Monterey/L.A Itinerary Help Please!

[Typhoon Tilly]

Good afternoon fellow Dibbers.
I’ve been looking for an itinerary on here for a while for two weeks or 16 days driving around but I can’t find one 😕.
For -
San Francisco - Three nights
Yellowstone - Two nights
Death Valley - No idea where to stay but I know it’s a seven hour journey from Yosemite to the Grand Canyon
Grand Canyon & Hooverdam - Possible overnight stay?
Las Vegas - Three nights
L.A - Disney three nights (of course &#128521
We would love to drive and see Monterey and Carmel - would we have time?
Travelling - Me, DH and DS with his new wife. I wondered if anyone can give us some advice on places to stay. Could we get a suite room to share in some places? I know it’s very expensive in San Fran. I’ve noted the Yosemite View Lodge 👍🏼
When - Next September/October 2019 (early I know but we need time to save).
Flying from - Manchester to either San Fran or L.A (I’ve checked this years prices and L.A is slightly cheaper direct).
If anyone can offer any advice I’d be extremely grateful.
Thanks in advance!

[TinkerBabe]

We did a similar trip in 2016 and it was our best holiday ever, and that’s saying a lot as we have been to some amazing places! We loved everyone one of our hotels and some of them were huge suites with 2 bedrooms each with 2 double beds, so plenty of room for bigger groups. Our itinerary was as follows:

San Fran 4 days -Holiday Inn Golden Gateway
Best Western Yosemite Gateway in Oakhurst 3 days-lovely rustic hotel with huge 2 bedroom/kitchen suite
Capitola - one night
Monterey - 2 nights
San Luis Obispo - one night at Madonna inn which was so much fun! Fabulous little town with a great farmers market with street food and beers on a Thursday evening.
LA stayed in Stevenson Ranch area for 5 nights so we could do six flags theme park and water park

Death Valley -one night at Furnace Creek, will never forget swimming in the hot spring pool at midnight while there were meteor showers overhead! Death Valley is just breathtaking.

LV 5 nights at Red Rock Casino and Spa- my favourite hotel ever, pure luxury, great value, off strip but with a free shuttle bus to the strip so you can come and go as you please.

You will have an amazing time wherever you go, it’s hard to pick a highlight as it was all so fab (but if I had to pick, I fell in love with the beauty of Death Valley) and we will definitely go back one day!

[jocat]

Can you do flights into one airport and out of another? That helped us with our itinerary and meant we didn’t have to do a full loop, which minimised the driving. We flew into LA and home from San Francisco with BA so it is possible. You could look at any combinations between LA, Vegas or SF.

Our itinerary was as follows:
3 nights Anaheim for Disney
3 nights LA - for Universal Studios, Warner Brother Studio Tour, Santa Monica, Griffith Observatory for the Hollywood sign followed by the Walk of Fame.
2 nights Cambria for a bit of relaxation on our eat up the PCH
2 nights Monterey
3 nights Yosemite - simply fabulous and our favourite part of the trip.
4 nights San Francisco.

I doubt any itinerary you read will have the perfect fit for you, but I read as many trip reports as I could and took ideas from those to make one that worked for us. If you can go for more than 2 weeks I’d recommend it, even if you can only manage to add an extra 2 or 3 nights - that might make things a lot more manageable.

As far as hotels are concerned, some places might have two bedroomed suites available - am sure I saw some possibilities on PCH hotels, plus in Anaheim. However you’d have to check whether it’s actually cheaper than 2 standard rooms, as that was a consideration when we looked to holiday with our daughter and her boyfriend.

San Francisco is expensive, but the time of year you are going should be quite a bit cheaper than ours was in the summer holidays, and there are ways to cut costs. We booked a cancellable rate at our hotel, then kept checking for deals. I found the best price about 4 months before we travelled. Register with the usual sites such as Expedia/ebookers/Hotels.com - I am always getting details of sales, deals and discount codes. Also used Quidco for cashback, which ranged from 12 - 15%.

[airedale1]

Hi we have a two week trip planned in August - flying from Manchester to SFO.
3 nights in The Hotel Zoe Fisherman's Wharf in a suite as we have a 17 year old DD - pick up car from SFO and then head-
2 nights Monterey staying in Pacific Grove
2 nights Yosemite staying in Oakhurst Best Western Yosemite Gateway
Driving through the Tioga Pass spending 1 night in Bishop -Creekside Inn beautiful looking hotel with large rooms - will then drive to Vegas for 6 nights staying at the Tahiti Resort and spa from where we will go to the Grand Canyon for the day . We picked this Hotel as it was off the strip with no casino again free shuttles to the strip and it has 2 bedroom suites which we will all need after sharing a room for a week with a hormonal teenager !
We're then flying back from Vegas to Manchester! Can't wait

[jdouds]

Hi first off get a map on screen and look at distances, would probably drive straight to vegas from yosemite via tioga pass ( stunning ) about 5 1/2 hour with a couple of stops, Grand Canyon is beyond vegas

[enjibenji]

Originally Posted by TinkerBabe

We did a similar trip in 2016 and it was our best holiday ever, and that’s saying a lot as we have been to some amazing places! We loved everyone one of our hotels and some of them were huge suites with 2 bedrooms each with 2 double beds, so plenty of room for bigger groups. Our itinerary was as follows:

San Fran 4 days -Holiday Inn Golden Gateway
Best Western Yosemite Gateway in Oakhurst 3 days-lovely rustic hotel with huge 2 bedroom/kitchen suite
Capitola - one night
Monterey - 2 nights
San Luis Obispo - one night at Madonna inn which was so much fun! Fabulous little town with a great farmers market with street food and beers on a Thursday evening.
LA stayed in Stevenson Ranch area for 5 nights so we could do six flags theme park and water park

Death Valley -one night at Furnace Creek, will never forget swimming in the hot spring pool at midnight while there were meteor showers overhead! Death Valley is just breathtaking.

LV 5 nights at Red Rock Casino and Spa- my favourite hotel ever, pure luxury, great value, off strip but with a free shuttle bus to the strip so you can come and go as you please.

You will have an amazing time wherever you go, it’s hard to pick a highlight as it was all so fab (but if I had to pick, I fell in love with the beauty of Death Valley) and we will definitely go back one day!

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Another vote for death valley. Wasn't expecting it to be on the top of our wow list tbh but it was. Absolutely loved it and also stayed at furnace creek ranch. We done our road trip sept/oct 2017 and have now booked to go back for xmas but doing it abit different. Everything about the trip was amazing.

[jdouds]

Sorry your post says 2018 is that right

[Typhoon Tilly]

Originally Posted by jdouds

Sorry your post says 2018 is that right

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Ooops - my mistake it is 2019! Thank you for pointing that out jdouds 👍🏼
All your replies are so helpful and I am definitely going to do Death Valley now after so many recommendations.
We are quite prepared to fly
In/out of either LA or SF, is one way better to drive from than another? Our days can be moved up to 16 daystoo if it could help us fit everything in.

[Typhoon Tilly]

Also how far out can you book hotels? Is it best to book earlier or not? How far ahead can you book for a Yosemite hotel?
Sorry so many questions ☺️

[Olympiad]

Originally Posted by Typhoon Tilly

Good afternoon fellow Dibbers.
I’ve been looking for an itinerary on here for a while for two weeks or 16 days driving around but I can’t find one 😕.
For -
San Francisco - Three nights
Yellowstone - Two nights
Death Valley - No idea where to stay but I know it’s a seven hour journey from Yosemite to the Grand Canyon
Grand Canyon & Hooverdam - Possible overnight stay?

See more...

Hi,

If you mean staying a night to see the West rim of Grand Canyon and Hoover dam then you're better off (in my opinion) doing it as a day trip from Vegas.

If you mean the South rim then yes you would be better spending a night there.