Newbie's looking for advise for West Coast trip!!

[Philip]

My girlfriend and I (both 23 and Irish) are arriving in Vancouver in late September on a one year working holiday. Before we get settled into working we had hoped to travel down the west coast of America (hoping to visit San Francisco, LA, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon etc etc). We hope to spend between 2 - 3 weeks doing so and are desperate for any advice from people with a bit more experience. I have a full Irish driving lience so I would probably be looking at renting a car in order to complete the trip. Any advice on rental services, must see destinations, or anything else that might be useful for first timers planning such a trip would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Phil

[Southwest Dave]

Hello and welcome to the RTA forums !

I would advise that you spend some time with a good map and looking around the forums and other road trip planning pages at RTA [see tool bars above] to search out info and ideas. Two to three weeks is fine, but in my book when it comes to road trips, three is better than two and not quite as good as four ! lol.

You will find that a common theme here is we don't do 'best' routes or 'must sees' as the road trip is an individual thing that gives you the freedom to do and to go where you want. Of course we will only be too pleased to help fill in the blanks and make suggestions as your planning progress's, but for now there are just too many options open to you. Look to taking a different route in each direction, perhaps coastal one way and inland back. I Would certainly be looking to include Yosemite NP and from the Grand canyon you could head through Utah and the likes of Bryce canyon and Zion NP.

As for the car rental, most offer the same type of service and it's just a case of searching around to find the best deal that suits your requirements. The same with every other sector, they are all competing for your money and deals are constantly changing. It does seem to be that us Europeans get better deals from booking prior to leaving our shores, so again it's a question of research.

As and when you have other questions, just ask away !