California and Nevada Road Trip 2009

[richard252]

Who`s going:
Me (Richard) and DW (Tracey) along with our friends Bob and Joan.

Background to our trip.
We will be driving approximately 1800 miles across California and Nevada in 19 days staying overnight at 11 different locations.
We have been planning this trip since we came back from Florida last September, so we are really looking forward to it!
After going to Florida for several years, we decided it was time to do something different. We have always wanted to do a road trip around California so we decided we would do it this year.
Bob and I have done all of the route planning, finding and booking hotels, tours and trips. The girls are just happy to go with the flow as far as tours and sightseeing goes, as long as they get some pool time, a drink (or 3) and some shopping time!
We picked a lot of the hotels, tours and trips, and which driving routes to take using info from The Dibb and other travel websites like Tripadvisor etc...
As for the driving, Bob and I will fight it out on who spends most of the time behind the wheel as we both love driving in the States. We have booked a Ford Explorer 4x4 7 seater for our 19 day road trip to give us plenty of room.



Ford Explorer

We have booked flights with Virgin Atlantic and will be flying on a Airbus A340-600 (v-port yipee! )
We will be on flights VS007 (11:15am) LHR - LAX on Mon 21 Sep and VS024 (20:55) LAX - LHR on Fri 9 Oct.


Airbus A340-600

We are flying out of Heathrow on Monday morning so we decided that it would be better if we travelled down to the airport from Leicester on the Sunday afternoon instead of fighting the Monday morning rush hour down the M1 and around the M25. So after we have done the OLCI in the morning, we will be leaving for Heathrow in the late afternoon.
We have booked the Travelodge Heathrow Central for £29 a room, it only opened on xmas eve last year so is fairly new and has got good reviews.

The places we will be visiting:
Death Valley.
Yosemite Park.
San Francisco.
Driving along the Pacific Coast Highway.
Monterey
Carmel.
Santa Barbara.
Malibu.
Valencia.
Las Vegas.
Los Angeles.
Santa Monica.

More to follow...

[Guest]

Will be interested to read your report, as it sounds like it should be an interesting trip.

[sue.o]

Looking forward to reading more! We did a similar trip last year and we loved it!

[donnakirby]

ohhh - i am looking forward to reading all about it when you get back - not long to go - i bet you are counting down the days

[richard252]

Originally Posted by donnakirby

ohhh - i am looking forward to reading all about it when you get back - not long to go - i bet you are counting down the days

See more...

Can`t wait... not long now
I will post more details about our road trip over the next few days...and i will do a trip report when i get back

[robert.fairhur]

Cant wait.
As Above.
BOB

[Guest]

Thats Better,
This is really me could'nt get on before:
Now then this trip is going to be Fan Dabbie Dozzy :pop:

21/09/2009 11.15

[Guest]

We have also done a very similar trip so can't wait to read all about it!

[Guest]

Pictures look good

[Guest]

Remember this is OUR Trip