Vancouver to San Diego

[CarlosGilbertos]

Me and a friend are planning a road trip down the West coast of America starting May 1st.
Basically we're currently in Whistler on a working holiday and want a road trip down through America to finish it off before we head home to the UK.

The only problem is that we have no idea how to arrange such a thing, so i'm asking for your advice on the basics such as, the best rental companies, the best choice of car, where to stay (Motels, campsites?), the realities of road trips etc.

The basic plan we have is to start the trip on 1st May and spend around 4 weeks on the road, hopefully ending in San Diego, seeing as many sights as possible along the way.

Any advice you could give would be fantastic, thanks :)

[AZBuck]

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

Well, there is certainly no shortage of things to see and do in the Pacific Northwest or the Desert Southwest and with four weeks you can do quite a bit of it all. You will have a small problem at the start of your trip, however, since it is not possible to rent a car in Canada and drop it off in the United States. So you and your friend will have to get yourselves to, say, Seattle by alternative transportation - plane, bus, train, ferry or friend - and rent your car there. There shouldn't be any problem renting a car for a month, but there will be a fairly substantial one-way drop-off fee of several hundred dollars, and if either you or your friend are under 25 then there will be an additional underage driver fee of around $700± per driver. Your best bet for finding the lowest price on a range of cars is to use one of the many travel search engines available such as Kayak, Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, etc. As far as camping vs. motels, that is a budget vs. comfort decision that only the two of you can make. If you already have the camping gear and are comfortable using it, then that would be a good way to save some money while using motels when it's raining or you need a hot shower and a comfortable bed. As far as other hints on planning your RoadTrip, this website offers pages upon pages of such hints just by hitting the ROADTRIP PLANNING button at the top of nearly every page.

AZBuck