First Road trip...EVER!! I need help :o)

[jodieduarte1]

HI, my name is Jodie and I am from England. My fiance and me are going to be getting hitched in Vegas on 20/11 2011...how cool is that date! Anyway, after spending five days with the family in Vegas we plan to rent a car and drive to some crazy places for our honeymoon over a period of 2 weeks. We would like to visit San Diego for the zoo, whale watching...sea world etc. Then go To Los Angeles just so we can say that we did...as well as visit the hollywood sign and the walk of fame like use english people like to do! Then we thought about going up to San Franciso for the bridge and other sites before heading back to Vegas for our flights home.

Any pointers will be very well appreciated. We have looked into car hire and it seems you can do this all over vegs so that's no problem. We are a bit stuck about where the best places to visit are. I don't want to drive passed somewhere that is seriously fun and not know about it because I'm just going to the big well know spots if you know what I mean. We will book hotels and things probably before we go so that we have some kind of plan.

How many days does anyone suggest is enough for san diego...LA...etc. I have put into bullet points the places that I know and would like to visit, if anyone else knows of some that I am missing and definitely should visit as a first timer then that would be great!!

Thanks for any help!

First time america road tripper!!

Jodie :o)

Places I would like to visit: -
San Diego - Zoo, Whale Watching, Sea World
Los Angeles - Hollywood Signm Walk of Fame, Shops, Venice Beach :o)
San Francisco - Golden Gate Bridge....that's all I know is there!!
Yosemite - On the way back

That's all I have so far...hopefully I can put some kind of fun itinerary together.

P.S I would also like to visit some well known scary locations...like those I've seen on TV lol Am I being silly or does America have a lot of these places around?
Is Death Valley one of them?

Thanks again, Jodie.

[Midwest Michael]

My fiance and me are going to be getting hitched in Vegas on 20/11 2011...how cool is that date!

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

I'm sorry to tell you that your date won't be quite as cool over here - where we put the Month first, so written out here it will be 11/20 2011! (yes, putting the date first is logical, but so is the metric system, and we don't like that either!)

As far as your roadtrip, the idea you've laid out is the most popular basic outline on this forum, so just by spending a little time looking around (here is a great starting point) you can find thousands of other threads and ideas to continue building your plan.

How much time do you have for this trip?

A couple things you will need to consider logistically, I'd recommend taking the coast highway from LA to SF, but you really need for that drive to take at least 2 days, and maybe 3, so you can enjoy the great scenic drive, and all the fun stops along the way.

Yosemite is a great place to visit, but the specific time of year for you will be a little tricky. Tioga Pass, which goes through the park across the Sierra Nevada Mountains typically closes for the winter in late October or November. I'd say you are at the point where the odds of it being open are less than 50%, but what you could consider doing is reversing your trip and going to San Francisco first, then down the coast to LA and SD. That would make your trip to Yosemite that much sooner, increasing your odds a bit, and it would give you the advantage that you'll be on the ocean side when traveling on the Pacific Coast highway.

If Tioga is closed, you can still visit Yosemite, you just have to access it from the west side of the Mountains, and then cross to the South in the Bakersfield area.

Death Valley really isn't a scary place - but it is a very beautiful place that I would certainly try to fit into your plans.