Aussie honeymooners need advice on roadtrip

Hi, We are arriving in San Francisco on July 27 and departing Los Angeles on Aug 17. We will be hiring a car and our intention is head east to a point(we thought maybe Denver??) where we can fly to NYC for a few days,fly back and take up our road trip again along a different route back to LA. Our list of must sees include, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Monument Valley, NYC, LA, San Francisco, San Diego, and as much of Route 66 as we can take in. We would also like to take in Death Valley, Bryce Canyon, Tijuana as well as anything else that we shouldn't miss if time and distance permits. We are 1st timers to the US and need some advice as to what the best route to take would be. Our initial thought was 2 days in SF 3 days in NYC and 3 days in LA with the rest of the time devoted to "the road trip". Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Being from Australia we are used to travelling long distances by car and very used to extreme summer heat. Thanks!!

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

I'm not sure if cost is a big factor in your trip planning, but its usually much cheaper to rent a car for a longer period than it is to rent two separate cars. This is especially true when you are talking about 1 way rentals, where you'll have a drop off fee.

If it were me, I would start by exploring SF, which can be done relatively easily without a car. Then I would fly to NY, where again, you wouldn't need a car, from there you can fly back west, either to SF, Denver, or another airport of your choosing and pick up your car and being the roadtrip portion of your vacation.

As far as the things to do in the part of the west you'll be visiting, there are hundreds of threads already dedicated to the area. Links to the best of those threads can be found Here.