First Road Trip(Flying from NJ to SF, road from SF back to NJ)

I think it's probably worth pausing to understand just how far apart things are in the American West, as it can be a bit hard to grasp when you've never been in the west.

This is probably the best bit of perspective I can give:
The distance from San Francisco to Colorado Springs is about 1325 miles.
The distance from Newark to Kansas City is only 1175 miles.

So while its easy to think about looping in San Francisco and Los Angeles with Colorado, what you're talking about isn't all that different than including Kansas City or New Orleans in with a trip to New York and Boston.

Which isn't to say that couldn't be done within 2 weeks, but it's a lot of miles - and time to cover those miles - that you need to take into account.

Beside logistical time and distance planning & programming, what do the kids want to do? Just California alone is a full enchilada, from north coast (north of San Francisco), central coastal, and the greater metro area of LA to San Diego (LA basically begins around Ventura these days; summertime I-5 can become a crawl zone, coastal roads are slower but more interesting). To the east are Yosemite, Sequoia, and a lot more).

Back to the kids: beaches, amusements, sports, hiking, nature,,,).

Thank you very much, I have talked to the family and we decided not to go to Utah and/or Colorado and limit this trip strictly to California, LV and Grand Canyon. I will post a plan what we would want to cover in those areas for 12 days we are there.
Thank you again all.

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A loop trip out of SFO, LAX, or LAS would probably be the best way to do that. Compare round trip airfares and car rental costs.

Also how would this trip different if we rent RV instead of car + hotels? And how is it difficult to operate/maintain RV? Also is it even possible to book one in a month time advance? Thank you.

Its most likely still an option to book one, you could check out the Cruise America site where you can get an instant on-line quote and availability without having to call anyone. Obviously an RV is slower and bigger to manoeuvre and there may be a problem finding available sites in any of the National parks at short notice. You could check that out at nps.gov. If you plan on spending time around LA then campgrounds are scarce and usually expensive. By the time you add on fuel costs, mileage charges and campground fees etc an RV will likely cost more than a car and family room in a hotel but they can be fun purely for the 'Lifestyle'. It's our preferred mode of transport, but it's certainly not for everyone.

Thank you. I was calculating the fuel cost, also RV thing being first time for us and this being a first California trip, it's probably car + hotels, I just have a hard time planning where exactly to book the hotels and if we will get on time to the booked hotels, it seem that if choose the hotels route, one has to precisely calculate the timings and places.

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Thank you. The problem i see with car + hotels it seem so hard to calculate hotels bookings in advance of exact places and precise timings.

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What I would do if this were me:

Calculate the cost of the rental of the RV *first*. Don't forget to include such things as the linen and kitchen packages, which don't necessarily come with the rig rental. Get a cost-per-mile over and above the rental rate, that they usually give you. They may also give you an approximate mile per gallon that the rig would possibly get. Figure on $20-50 per night in the rig, which will sleep all 5 of you.

Then get some basic rates for motel rooms. Are you all planning to cram into one room every night, or will you be getting suite hotels (if available) or two rooms? Figure on restaurant costs. I usually just type in approximate dates for a motel room and go from there, seeing the range of a given area, and I do this either from this website or TripAdvisor.

Usually, the car+hotel+restaurants still make sense financially. Maybe not, though, if you're needing two hotel rooms every night. Also, as Dave pointed out, and RV is pretty much a lifestyle choice. With an RV, you choose to carry your bedroom along the road with you, make the bed/s every morning, dump the tanks (not a pretty job) when necessary. With a motel, somebody else makes the bed, you do wonder who slept in that bed the night before and if it is clean, and you carry suitcases in, instead of dumping tanks.

Everything's a trade off.

Donna

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Originally Posted by dendazen

Thank you. The problem i see with car + hotels it seem so hard to calculate hotels bookings in advance of exact places and precise timings.

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It's not a lot different to an RV and having to be at a particular campground, you can't just park an RV and go to sleep when you decide to stop for the night. And it's not that bad once you start breaking your trip down into daily segments of what you want to achieve. From the first draft it's likely to change many times as you find new things along the way and and juggle things around. Instead of thinking of the trip as a whole, start breaking it down into parts and then join it back up again. If you lay out a basic itinerary of what you hope to achieve and post it up we can make suggestions, offer advice and answer any questions you may have about particular areas of the trip you are not sure.