First time in USA- Driving from San Fran to Seattle

[Midwest Michael]

Rather than flying from LA to SF, have you considered driving? You'd be flying over one of the most scenic coastal highways in the world, and area that is very much worthy of 2-3 days of time.

Are you no longer planning to do Grand Canyon?

12 days seems like a lot - relatively speaking - for NYC. You'll have no shortage of things to do with that time of course, its just a a lot longer than anywhere else on your trip.

One way flights tend to be rather expensive, and I think you'll find the flights to and from Toronto to be especially pricy, since there is less competition from discount airlines on international routes.

[Lifemagician]

Renee, I'd have to agree with Michael, it really does not make sense to fly from Chicago to Toronto and on to NYC. Besides the time spent in the airports, you will be going through international security twice.

I'd be inclined to cut back NY by a few days, and look at driving to Toronto via Windsor (2 days) and onto NYC. The border crossings by car are much quicker and less hassle.

Is there a special reason for going to Toronto? If not, why not just drive to Niagara Falls, and enjoy them, before heading to NYC. You could do that in one very long day, or break it up and see some of upstate NY and maybe through PA, over two days.

Is your trip to AK taking you all the way to Anchorage or Fairbanks? If so, I might see you there. lol

And yes, I too was wondering about the Grand Canyon, but frankly, you are seeing so many amazing sights, if it doesn't fit in, it can wait till next time.

Lifey

[matthewh133]

Hey guys, sorry I'm not the OP, but the OP's partner. We are still doing the grand canyon, most definitely. It's just included as part of the Vegas leg :)

We are unable to drive LA - San Fran. We have accommodation in both LA and San Fran, in fact almost all accommodation booked for the trip, so we can't really afford to add the extra 2-3 days. There is so many more things and so much more time we would have loved to spend at places, but there's only so much time under our belts unfortunately!

In regards to New York, we are there so long as I have an Aunt who lives in Manhattan, and thus we'll have a couch to be sleeping on for free.. so we thought we'd take advantage. We'll be doing a few trips from there also in that time, probably to Washington DC, maybe Philly.

I'll leave Renee to answer the remainder of your questions in regards to Toronto and the Alaska cruise as I am not 100% sure, I cannot remember exactly how far up we go. I do believe we go to anchorage though.

[reneec133]

Hi everyone. I know it has been a really long time since we last posted in this thread... but I thought people might be interested in hearing how our trip went. We wrote in quite a lot of detail on our blog plus we posted loads of photos. In summary, the trip was incredible! We are definitely travelling to North America again (hopefully soon!)

Blog: http://mattandrenee.tumblr.com

Thanks for everybody who helped us plan the trip :)