San Francisco - New Orlean, need your advices

[Dmitry]

Hi, I from Russia, I'm fly to US with my wife and our friends in the end of september. We plan travel by car from San Francisco to New Orleans.
Our travel plan here
I need in your help. In first i have some questions:
1. I'm looking for good and cheap car rental in San Francisco for one-way trip. Could you recommend me it?
2. I'm worry about New Orleans, what do you think is it good idea drive there after hurricane?
3. We are interesting in many things, but in first we are interested in: beautiful places, old and historic places, traditional cousin, traditional music and culture. Our friends are architectors - they are interested in modern arts and architecture. Could you give us advice which places is better for us? What we need to see? Were good restaurants, and where we can find traditional musicians, for example cajuns or native americans (we are plan to visit navaho is it interesting?)?
4 I'm worry about time. We plan do this trip in two weeks is it real? If it impossible how can we make our trip shorter?

Thank you

[blimey85]

Two weeks should be more than enough time. I did a similar trip a couple years back that was round-trip and my trip lasted two weeks. Worked out just fine.

Have you considered the Grand Canyon? I was underwhelmed by it when I was there but I had just seen Canyon De Chelly (I think that's how it's spelled) which to me is more impressive, and I had the flu just then so I was fairly miserable.

Regarding the hurricanes, Gustav turned out to not be nearly as severe as it could have been. It's still too early to tell what the total impact is but at this point I think you'll be fine. I'm going through that part of the country in 2 1/2 weeks and I changed my route to stay well north of it but that was before Gustav made land fall. After deciding to change our route we noticed we would now be going through Atlanta which is the home of the Georgia Aquarium and so even though Gustav wasn't as bad as they thought it might be, we're going to stick with our new route.

-Blimey

[PNW Judy]

And it was fun to look at a Google map in Russian. That's a first for me! :)

Welcome to the RTA forums.

1. I'm looking for good and cheap car rental in San Francisco for one-way trip. Could you recommend me it?

You will need to stick with any of the major car rental agencies because of it being a one-way trip. You can go directly to the websites of companies like Hertz, Avis, Nationwide, National, Budget, etc. or you can go to someplace like Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline, etc. We have no magic tricks to find any better deals than what you'll find there.

2. I'm worry about New Orleans, what do you think is it good idea drive there after hurricane?

Gustav turned into a tropical storm and did not do much damage to New Orleans. Things should be fine by the time you arrive as long as more storms don't come in. I wouldn't change my plans because of Gustav.

3. We are interesting in many things, but in first we are interested in: beautiful places, old and historic places, traditional cousin, traditional music and culture. Our friends are architectors - they are interested in modern arts and architecture. Could you give us advice which places is better for us? What we need to see? Were good restaurants, and where we can find traditional musicians, for example cajuns or native americans (we are plan to visit navaho is it interesting?)?

Your route is going to take you through many areas with these types of things. The trip to the Navajo reservation should be fantastic. You will see changing architecture throughout this trip as architectural styles tend to be regional, to an extent. The best way to find traditional cuisine, music, etc. is to ask around in the local areas for their recommendations. You can generally get this help from your hotel clerk and local visitor centers.

I hope somebody with the same interests and familiarity with the areas you're traveling through will pop in with more specific recommendations. You might want to make use of the search feature here (see green bar above) to find posts that discuss your interests.

4 I'm worry about time. We plan do this trip in two weeks is it real? If it impossible how can we make our trip shorter?

I don't think you need to shorten your trip. You should be able to do this in 2 weeks, just fine. You'll just want to pace yourself.

Keep asking questions as you're planning so we can help you plan a fantastic roadtrip! Happy planning.

[Southwest Dave]

Hello Dmitry,

I agree with all that Judy has said, there is so much diversity through the places you have chosen to travel.

You will have 5-6 driving days from A to B leaving you 8 or 9 days to explore the areas you are visiting. You will find the National parks site has great info on the parks you want to visit. I would look to spending 2 days at each of the following, Yosemite, Zion and Grand canyon, even if it means leaving mid afternoon to get a few more miles out of the way before pulling up for the night.
And how about Antelope canyon in the Navajo's region, near Page.

As Judy said, keep asking away.

Dave

[Dmitry]

Thank you for your answers, dear friends. Your information will be helpful for us.

We've got a lot of information on your forum and on other sites like tripadisor. We use kayak, priceline and orbitz looking for hotels and car.

We've made a decision with car - we will book it through Alamo, I think. We would like to take Ford Escape.

But we have problem with hotels. In major points of our trip - San Francisco, New Orleans, New York (we have 3 weeks, and we are planing to have rest in Manhattan) we tried to reserve not expensive hotels (bad&breakfast will be better) not far from center. But all of them are booked! Today it's the main problem for us. We've booked a pretty B&B in San Francisco, but we don't sure that we could book something in New York.

In the another cities we are planing to stay in motels.

Thanks for yours advices about national parks near Grand Canyon. It's beautiful place. It's very difficult to choose two or three places from all parks. I want to see all of them, but I don't have time.

Could you give us advice about the way from El Paso to San Antonio. What do you think of places through this way ? What is better - to get this distance by a plane or by a car?

We would like to have a rest for couple days on wild beaches near Houston. What do you think of it? Is there any nice places? Could you give us advice about nice beaches over Houston?

Thank you again, your answers are very important for us.

[Mark Sedenquist]

We would like to have a rest for couple days on wild beaches near Houston.

While it true that Texas has a long coastline -- as a general rule we don't tend to really think of Texas has having "sand beaches" and there really aren't any I am aware of at Houston -- but Galveston Island (which is nearby) has some nice beaches for relaxing and Galveston has some nice motels and restaurants. There are some awesome beaches along the Texas coastline, but they require some effort and driving expertise to reach -- read this article about South Padre Island for example.

What is better - to get this distance by a plane or by a car?

It would be very expensive to get an air flight between these places -- it's only about a nine hour drive. You might enjoy taking a detour to Big Bend National Park -- there is a restaurant in Terlingua -- worth going out of the way for -- and it has excellent western music at night. Here is an article that was written for RV enthusiasts -- but the information would be helpful to you as well.

Mark

[Dmitry]

Thank you, Mark, your links was helpful for me

I have another question. I can't make decision which way is better Flagstaff>Tucson>El Paso or Gallup>Albuquerque>El Paso.

We are planing visit reservation Navajo, and if we choose first way we should back from Window Rock to Flagstaff, hence we will lost a little time. I couldn't choose between Tucson and Albuquerque.

[PNW Judy]

Thank you, Mark, your links was helpful for me

I have another question. I can't make decision which way is better Flagstaff>Tucson>El Paso or Gallup>Albuquerque>El Paso.

We are planing visit reservation Navajo, and if we choose first way we should back from Window Rock to Flagstaff, hence we will lost a little time. I couldn't choose between Tucson and Albuquerque.

Better? Tough call as both are great.

If you go through Tucson, you can visit the Saguaro NP, Tombstone/Bisbee, and see one kind of desert along your route.

If you go through Albuquerque, you can enjoy the Route 66 kitsch of Gallup (especially visit the El Rancho Hotel), the charm of old town Albuquerque and nearby petroglyphs, and places like the Very Large Array and White Sands, and a bit different type of desert/landscape, on the way to El Paso.

I've enjoyed both routes equally. I think looking at the estimated travel time and the specific attractions along each route and determining which appeal to you more is the only way to make this decision.

If you need more information, let me know.