I hear you about the driving. I have toured in Australia so appreciate how distances between the good bits can suck up your time. I thought we’d try to do hops by plane where the country becomes somewhat monotonous or the distances are just too great.
We’re just starting planning now so want to be open to many ideas that we can sort through.
What time of the year are you traveling? For you Kiwis, the southwestern dessert is really different from what you are used to. People were talking about Tahoe, but a more direct route from San Francisco might be through Yosemite and over Tioga Pass (closed in the winter), which is pretty fucking incredible, but similar to New Zealand. After taking a peek at Mono Lake you will definitely want to drive through Death Valley from Lone Pine on your way to Vegas. If you are travelling during the summer, temperatures can hit over 130°F which is like 55°C.
Bring a bunch of water!
Death Valley during the spring and fall can have delightful weather. I was there around April 1 and one day we had a high of 80°F and one day it was 100°F.
We haven’t worked out what time of year yet. I reckon it’s got to be after summer vacation for your schools, but I may be persuaded differently.
Those Death Valley temps are just too much. I have travelled in Australia’s top end but the temp maxed out at about 48 Celsius (120 F) and that was mostly kept at bay in the airconned 4x4 we were in.
If I could suggest a time of year to visit it would be after labor day weekend (first Monday in Sept) because most of the schools and universities have started again. I refuse to visit Disneyland any earlier than that due to crowds. My suggestions would be to start in LA then rent a car and drive to the Grand Canyon, then to Vegas. next come back to California and take some of the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) up to the Bay Area. then catch the I-5 (by way of Napa Valley) up to Oregon and catch Crater Lake on the way to Seattle and then Vancouver back home.
Are there any things your more interested in than others? Museums? Beaches? Theme parks? Nature’s beauty? Places that you can point to the TV and say “I’ve been there!”? (like my parents) 
If you’re going to go to Vancouver, BC, stop in Bellingham, WA and we’ll have a beer.
Thinking about it, I’d be inclined to do one of two routes, both of which would take you to Vegas and the Grand Canyon:
Coastal(ish): LA > Vegas > Grand Canyon > Yosemite > San Fran > California wine country > Redwood forest > Oregon coast and Portland > Seattle area > Vancouver
Inland West: LA > Vegas > Grand Canyon (north rim) > Zion Natl Park and Bryce Canyon (it is freakin’ amazing) > Monument Valley > Natural Bridges, Canyonlands, and Arches > northern Utah > Yellowstone and Jackson Hole > Glacier Natl Park
Monument Valley was pretty impressive, but I was only there an hour and felt like I got my fill. Someone else may wish to enlighten me on something I may have missed.
LOL!
Oatman is interesting, but I wouldn’t travel across the Pacific Ocean to visit it. Chloride looked like it could be kind of interesting, but it was closed when I went there. (Yep, pretty much the whole town. Closed.) On the whole there are a lot more spectacular sites to see out West.
My wife and I took a few days’ drive around western Washington state - saw some of the northern cascades, Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, the coast, the Olympic peninsula. Mt. St. Helens was the most awesome. You’re standing miles away from the cone among the desolation of stumps and logs blasted away by the explosion. And this was a minor one!
SSSSH No one is supposed to know:D
Sort of a logistics issue: “One-way car rentals” are expensive, but it’s possible to minimize the cost. You get charged an expensive rate for every day you keep the car. Renting and returning to the same location is almost always MUCH cheaper.
Let’s say you decide to rent a car in Las Vegas and drive to Phoenix, AZ, where you want to use the car for day trips, then return the car in a week. It will be MUCH cheaper to rent the car in Las Vegas, drive to Phoenix, and immediately return the car. Then you can rent another car (from the same company, probably) for your local trips.
In this way you get cheaper local rates for most of your stay, and minimize the expensive days.
J.
I came to post to ask you that. If you travel in Arizona and Nevada in the middle of our summer, be prepared for searing heat.
And if you want to hike down a ways into the Grand Canyon (and you should), be prepared for the temperatures to rise even higher. The Park Rangers there tell you to plan on taking four times as long climbing up as you spend going down. (For an hour-long hike, climb down for just 12 minutes … it’s that brutal)
Here’s about 5,000 “short miles” for the West.
Google Maps wouldn’t let me add every single thing I would want on there, but you can move stuff around to get a feel for the enormity of it all. I would go on the West side of the Olympic Peninsula though, and head back to the California coast after Yosemite, from Monterey southward.
Canyon de Chelly is astounding, and the story is fascinating (Kit Carson was a real prick). You must have a guide to go into the canyon, but it’s worth it: you get a true sense of the Eden that the Navajo were forced to leave. If you can’t afford a tour, the rim drives are well worth it.
If you’ve never been to Las Vegas it’s well worth the trip if for nothing else than the excitement, lights, and 24 hour a day activity. I never waste money gambling so I never leave a loser.
The Grand Canyon is beautiful. The problem is that 15 minutes after you’re there, you’ve seen it and then what?
Disneyland is crowded to the point that it makes enjoying the attractions difficult. You’ll wait an hour in line at any popular ride. That really kills the day.
San Diego has a great zoo, and a wild animal park. San Diego is an hour and a half south of LA so the trip isn’t a big deal. Visit the Midwaymuseum if you like touring large ships. The Midway was an aircraft carrier turned into a museum. Balboa park has some nice museums and is located close to the zoo.
Freeways are well marked and access is easy throughout California if you pay attention.
Hollywood is worth a day (or night), if nothing else, just to see the locals. Rodeo Drive (Beverly Hills) is probably worth an afternoon of window shopping and celebrity spotting. The Queen Maryis an interesting visit. It’s not far from LA .
I’d avoid Tijuana (Mexico) even though it’s just minutes south of San Diego. There have been drug war related problems there in the recent past.
That’s pretty much a quick once over of Southern California. Someone above mentioned the drive up Hwy 1. If follows the rugged coastline and has some beally beautiful scenery.
Enjoy your trip.
Thanks everyone for their input so far. I’m kind of tied up at work so can’t pop into this thread very often today or tomorrow.
For reference, it’s 12:36 at the moment on Thursday afternoon. Just having a lunch break and about to disappear again.
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Monument Valley was pretty impressive, but I was only there an hour and felt like I got my fill. Someone else may wish to enlighten me on something I may have missed.
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For me, Monument Valley was so quiet, so peaceful. It seemed like the definition of “forever” in a tangible form.
I rented a midlevel SUV, unlimited miles for a week for $220.00.
Research plane tickets:
If you fly, the prices will be lower in between major cities. I’m in Dallas/Fort Worth and last summer, tickets to El Paso (about 10 driven hours away) were $350.00… Tickets to San Francisco were about $150.00.
I have heard from several travelers that NW US - SW Canada is, natural history-wise,not all that much different from a large part of NZ. Notwithstanding that that may be bollocks (and I’d like to hear other’s opinions on that) you may want to stay SSW. New Mexico for example has unique histories both native and European, beuatiful natural features, unique and delicious regional food, etc. You could make a big driving loop out of it and thereby avoid one way rentals ans intra US flights.
I just have to chime in with those who are warning that the western US is HUGE, and interesting things are really really far apart. I realize you’re in the early stages of planning, but just keep in mind that if you don’t narrow down your goals a lot, you’re either going to spend a LOT of time driving through very boring landscapes, or else a LOT of money flying from place to place.
This is a comment I would make. And someone posted a long route that missed both the Coast Highway (Hearst Castle, etc.) and California’s Gold Country. :smack:
Resolving the “One-way vs round-trip car rental” logistic issue is a key question, but if you resolve that, consider flying into Las Vegas initially, so you need to cross the Mojave Desert only once; visit Grand Canyon, drive to L.A., then up the Coast Highway to the San Francisco area where there is much to visit, then through the Gold Country and/or Yosemite toward Lake Tahoe. (The drive from Reno/Tahoe to Las Vegas is pleasant if boring, if completing a cycle is convenient for logistics.)
That’s a much shorter trip than you asked about, skipping the whole Northwest. it all depends on whether you like to travel or to visit. There are several towns along the route I proposed that each might be fun to spend several days in.
Get some real Mexican food. I’m serious. Real Mexican street-cart peasant food is something you cannot get anywhere else. What you find in other places is “Tex-Mex”, mostly – Mexican food as reinterpreted by Americans. Ideally you want to stop in some hole-in-the-wall place where nobody on the entire staff is a native speaker of English. Fair warning: Nothing in a Mexican restaurant is vegetarian, except the horchata. Even if it doesn’t look like it has meat in it, it’s been cooked in lard or chicken stock.
Other than that, I echo the above comments about distances. I live in Massachusetts now, which is about as big as the county I grew up in, in central Arizona. Las Vegas to Phoenix is about eight hours in a car, as is Phoenix to Disneyland. When the road signs say “NEXT SERVICES 40 MILES” they are not kidding. In California, CalTrans often has emergency phones by the road every couple of miles; in Arizona and Nevada, they do not. If your cell phone doesn’t work on US networks, get a temporary one that does. If anything goes wrong with the rental car, you’ll need it. IME, Verizon and AT&T have terrible reception in northern Arizona, but T-Mobile generally works.
If you want the authentic “American frontier town” experience, wander around in Flagstaff for a while. It’s an excellent example of the kind of town that was built out on the edge of “civilization” by people who schlepped over from New England. The Northern Arizona University is a little over 100 years old, and if you call them, they’ll set you up with a tour; just off campus is the Riordan Mansion, which also runs walking tours most of the year. If you’re a fan of ghost stories, there are about a million spots in town you can go looking for them – PM me if you want details.