West Coast/Yosemite/Vegas - Itinerary Added

[Guest]

Hi all, new member here asking for some advise. We have just booked flights into and out of Oakland for July/August last big family holiday before eldest goes off to Uni! We have 21 days and our initial itinery was as follows

Oakland to Vegas (via Yosemite)- Week 1
Vegas to LA - Week 2
LA to San Fra - Week 3

We haven't booked accommodation yet, but we will for San Fra at end of Holiday (last 3 or 4 days) and perhaps first night near to Oakland. Is there anywhere else you would recommend we book sooner rather than later?

Thanks

[jdouds]

Hi is it for this year or next, if this year first thing to do is try and get accommodation for Yosemite, would suggest 3 n min.Accommodation is usually very heavily booked from 10/12 months out. Where else do you plan to visit, grand canyon, palm springs ,lake Tahoe, san diego, death valley. Lots of help when you expand your itinerary with some more detail.

[Guest]

Thank you, it is for this year, only booked flights this morning, so lots to sort out over the coming days and weeks ahead. Hopefully be able to expand the itinerary this weekend.

[jdouds]

Let us know and you will get lots of help, priority would definitely be booking yosemite accommodation either inside or close will be busy, perhaps have a look at Yosemite view lodge, a mile from entrance. ps accommodation west coast is considerably more expensive than orlando. for some areas we use airbnb, home away.

[Guest]

That's great, thank you. The hard work planning starts now!

[Ariel88]

Hi,

Welcome to TheDibb! Sounds like you’ve got a great start to your trip so far. We’re travelling a similar route in October this year but will be starting in San Francisco and ending in LA. Here’s our 2 week trip as a rough guide.

Day 1 fly to San Francisco
Day 2 San Francisco
Day 3 San Francisco
Day 4 Pick up car hire and drive to Yosemite
Day 5 Yosemite
Day 6 Yosemite to Big Pine
Day 7 Drive to Las Vegas via Death Valley
Day 8 Vegas
Day 9 Drive to Grand Canyon
Day 10 Drive to Anaheim
Day 11 Disneyland
Day 12 Disney California Adventure
Day 13 LA
Day 14 LA
Day 15 Flight home

There’s quite a few long drives in there but if you have another week you could easily add in a few extra stops or stay longer and still have 3/4 nights left for the Pacific coast section. As mentioned already I’d look at accommodation for Yosemite (and Grand Canyon if considering staying there too) as the National parks book up quickly. Ours are all booked on refundable rates in case our dates change in the meantime.

[jdouds]

Ariel just be aware you might have to change your route come october with the possbility of tioga pass closing with snow. Somtimes dosnt close to later but you would need to keep an eye on it. LAST FEW YEARS NOV

[jdouds]

Areil for the lenght of your trip you have a lot of stops. If you have done florida in the past i would almost say dont do disney and spend more time in the other areas

[Guest]

Thanks Ariel, Yes we are still working on where to stop, I think Grand Canyon will just be a day trip from Vegas, two teenagers not really interested in a big hole (as they put it). We may stay one night in Yosemite on way, looking at accommodation as advised earlier in thread, so hope to have that sorted shortly. Car hire seems pricey, who can you recommend? As we both drive and have previously driven long road trips in US before, we don't mind putting in the miles on certain dates to get to where we need to be, but having three weeks instead of two, certainly helps!

[Pookle]

We're going this summer and ours is

LA - 4 nights
Vegas - 4 nights (to include Grand Canyon)
Lone Pine - 1 night
Yosemite - 3 nights
San Francisco - 3 nights
Carmel - 3 nights
Santa Barbara - 2 nights

We're doing a loop starting and finishing LA. Priority is definitely getting Yosemite booked if that's important to you. I booked our Yosemite accommodation for August 2018 in August 2017.