3 weeks for a road trip West Coast and Nevada

[Ichinnock]

Dear All,

I understand that the general area that my family and I are visiting has been discussed at length within this very useful forum, however, I would welcome any feedback regarding my current plans as I am from London and haven't completed a holiday of this sort before! Flights are booked, as is car hire and my current itinerary is as follows;

Arrive in LA on a Saturday in the summer and tour around LA for 5 days whilst getting over jet lag, etc.
Drive down to San Diego and remain there for a further two full days
Drive and stay in Joshua Tree National park and travel the following day to Vegas
Remain in Vegas for a further 3 days
Drive to Death Valley and stay the night
Drive from Death Valley to Yosemite and stay for two nights
Yosemite to San Fran for 4 nights - exploring the surrounding area and Nappa Valley
The overall trip is three weeks.

My children will be 8 and 13 and so I want to keep to a sensible amount of driving but I also want them to experience as much as possible and as many different landscape/cultural changes as possible.

I look forward to hearing from you all with suggestions for best route, anything i have missed or itinerary changes?

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

The trip you've laid out certainly would work, and is a comfortable pace.

However, if it were me, there are a couple changes I would make.

First, I would add in the Grand Canyon. It just seems like a shame to be this close to a wonder of the world, and not go there. It's too far from Vegas to do as a daytrip, and most Vegas-based tours don't actually go to the National Park, so instead drive from San Diego/Joshua Tree to the south rim, and then head back towards Vegas.

I would also make this a complete loop, and finish back in Vegas, which would allow you to drive down the coast from SF to Los Angeles before heading home. You would need at least 2 days for this drive, and there's a quite a few things you'd probably want to stop for, like the Monterey Aquarium, Big Sur, and maybe Hearst Castle.

These things would require some time to be taken from elsewhere, but I think you've got more than enough time in the cities to steal from. You could certainly spend less than a week in LA/San Diego, and I'm guessiing the kids would find the Pacific Coast far more interesting than Napa/Wine Country (although you could still check out some of the wineries along the central coast, near Paso Robles, if that's really your thing).