First road trip SF/LA/LV/Yosemite - does this seem 'doable'?

[christine]

Hi,

This site is great! and you all seem to offer great tips and suggestions.
We are a family from the UK - 2 adults and a teenager and we have a vague idea of a trip we would like to do either in May or Sep 2009 (this will be dependant upon if the weather is too hot for us in one of these months?)
We have 15 days and want to experience the beauty and splendour of the NP's along with some beach and chill time and also take in SFO and Vegas for good measure

We would like to visit :-
SFO x 2 days
Yosemite x 2 days. Would 2 days be enough to see everything?
Death Valley - should we stay or drive through to Vegas?
Vegas for 2 nights and
Perhaps a trip to Gran Canyon

Then head over to the coast - Santa Barbara for 1 night. Is the trip from GC or Vegas to Santa Barbara too long? If so can anyone suggest an historic or scenic stopover?

Drive up to Monterey or Carmel and stay for 1 night

and then head back to SFO for a final night stop

As you can see my stops dont add-up to the 15 nights at the moment so I realise I have more work to do........But perhaps if any of you have done a similar route before you could provide me with some great advice

Thanks in hope...Christine

[Southwest Dave]

this is a very popular choice for road tripping in the u.s.a. and you should be able to piece together some great ideas from the forums with the search button above. the main thing to remember is the distances are vast out there.

i think you'd need 2 months and still struggle to see all of yosemite properly but a couple of days will give you a good over view,it's truly magnificient,probably my favorite place. this is where i think your main consideration would lie between coming in may or sept. i doubt theres much difference in temps but in yosemite the roads on the high ground could still be closed in may and one of them [hwy 120] the tioga pass is the main route across the sierras from yosemite to the east side and death valley,although you can go around it could still restrict your visit. the bonus in may is that the waterfalls should be really flowing and you can get around the valley floor with no problems. sept you will have access to all areas.

i would also grand canyon is a must see and witness at least one sunset or sunrise,it's an incredable feeling. i would spend at least one night/2 days here to appreciate it. you can sit at one viewpoint for hours just trying to take it in.

if you went from grand canyon to S/B it would be a very long days drive and you might be better off with a stop.

here is a 15 day road trip from san fran that we took and may give you some ideas of what lies ahead but we did'nt take in the coast.

have a search around and when your ready fire away with more questions :-)