Help Re: honeymoon please

[Goodwin]

Hi everyone

I'm new to the site and I'm sure you've heard this all before but my fiance and I are planning to go to Las Vegas and then on to do the west coast of America. We have about 2 and a half weeks to do this in and thought of spending about 2-3 days in Vegas and then fly on from there. Does it make any difference if you start from the top and work your way down or start from the bottom? Are there places we should avoid? I've heard you need to know where to go in LA as it can be a bit dangerous, is this true? Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated. We want to see as much as we can in the time we have. We are getting married April of next year.

Many thanks in advance.

Elaine

[PNW Judy]

Any big city usually has areas that one would prefer to avoid. Anytime I have been playing tourist in big cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, I have never ended up in those areas. The typical tourist areas usually aren't near them, in my experience. I would recommend that you research where you want to go in these cities prior to your trip. Part of your research should include getting driving directions. You can certainly come back to this website and ask for help on all of this. Good guidebooks usually have a lot of this information available if you decide to purchase one to use on your trip.

We have driven through a few seedy areas in cities where I probably wouldn't feel comfortable getting out and walking around but I have never felt endangered while driving through them. I always advise people to make sure their "personal safety radar" is turned on when they travel....this is the same thing that we should all be using every day of our lives, even in our own home towns. I don't mean that you should be paranoid or live in fear. I just mean that you should always exercise good common-sense and trust your intuition. I believe you will find that this will serve you well in your travels both around time and around the world.

It's only about 5 hours drive from Las Vegas to LA and it's an interesting drive. By the time one would go to the Las Vegas airport, check in, go through security, fly (flight is about 1 hour, 5 minutes), pick up your luggage, get a rental car at the airport, get out of the airport, etc., you could just get a rental car in Las Vegas and drive to LA in about the same amount of time. So, if it was me, I'd rent a car in Las Vegas and drive to LA, explore LA, then drive up the coast to San Francisco, explore San Francisco and the surrounding area, and then fly out of San Francisco. Would that work for you?

[Goodwin]

That's extremely helpful about the drive from Las Vegas to LA I didn't realise it was only 5hrs and I'm terrified of flying (something I'm going to try and get over before the honeymoon!) so driving to LA would be much better for me.

Thanks for the advice.

Regards

Elaine