Hi All,
First can I say - what a great forum! I’ve found it so useful to help sort out my own little road trip.
I’m travelling to Nevada & California from England with my husband for our honeymoon in 2 weeks time. We are both USA and roadtrip virgins so thought we’d start with a fairly popular trip – Vegas to LA via some of the parks, SF, Napa etc (sorry – you must get so bored of giving the same advice for these trips!). Needless to say we are both ridiculously excited! We have the itinerary planned, so what I’m really after is some tips for the drive in between these places. I don’t want to take the most boring/direct route so would love some tips on some scenic drives or any worthwhile diversions. I’m not sure my other half would agree, but I’m certainly looking forward to the drive as much as the places we are visiting!
Anyway, our itinerary is as follows:
Nights 1-3 – Vegas
Night 4 Death Valley
Nights 5-7 Yosemite
Nights 8-9 Calistoga (Napa)
Nights 10-13 San Fran
Night 14 Monterey
Night 15 San Luis Obispo
Nights 16-17 Santa Barbara
Fly home from LAX
I’d particularly appreciate any tips for the Vegas to DV leg (Is red rock canyon worth a stop? Are there any ghost towns nearby?) and the DV to Yosemite leg. I know this leg is a LOOONG one and there looks like there’s so much amazing stuff to see en route- I’m a bit annoyed we haven’t allowed for longer here! But any tips for a route we could take for that one day drive? Do you think we could fit in Bodie ghost town and Mono Lake as well? I’d like to go over the tioga pass rather than the longer way round ideally. Also I’m particularly clueless re: the Yosemite to Napa leg. Again- a longish one (by the standards of us Brits!) and I’ve no idea at all what to see on route. Of course, any tips for any other of the legs would be great.
Finally, do you have any practical tips for us? I’m not one of life’s more organised individuals and am really only used to city driving! Anything we need to take in terms of car maintenance or to cope with the various different terrain/climates on the journey? At the moment I think we are down to take a fairly standard saloon from the car rental. We were toying with the idea of a mustang (bit of a cliché I know!) but not sure whether we might regret it when stuck up a mountain or in the desert!
Sorry for the long post. Any help at all would be much appreciated... Thanks xx