California Vacation??
http://midequalitygroup.co.uk/events/2024-04-21/ Hi my and my family want to go to a vacation in California. We need some help planning. Help please!
So we want an inexpensive hotel that has good service. Do you know any hotels that are near places that we want to visit (look below)?
We don’t know what time of year to go, but we’re thinking the end of May. Your thoughts?
We want to visit Disneyland, Sea World, a great beach like Malibu, Hollywood, and maybe San Fransisco. Is it too much and too expensive? If so, which of these should we go to? Or is there some other things to do that you suggest?
Also, how far away are these places from each other?
We live in Illinois, do you suggest driving or flying. Which is cheaper? If flying, which airline is cheapest?
Thanks! 🙂
6 Responses
On the Radio Uh
10 Feb 2010
Gala
10 Feb 2010
i think i’d concentrate on southern california: sea world, the san diego zoo, and going to the beach in la jolla would be a good 3 days; then if you want to go to disneyland, that’s at least a day, then you could do hollywood and the tar pits (and at least one museum, the ones in LA are terrific). driving would be good because you’d have to rent a car anyway. San Diego and LA are about 2-3 hours away from each other, depending on the traffic.
i don’t know what you mean by ‘good service’ in a hotel. priceline, expedia, all the discounters will tell you what the level of services are at the hotels, so you probably want a 4 star hotel. Understand that no inexpensive hotel gives good service: either you save money or you can go off menu in the middle of the night with room service. (my husband likes the 4 seasons in chicago because they’ll bring you a BLT–bacon lobster and tomato–at 2:00 AM). are you going to be in your room that much?
be sure to put all this on a credit card that gives you air miles or hotel points; with a hotel stay, tickets for disney and shamu etc, then you should be able to get some decent reward points/miles that you can use for the next vacation.
i also don’t know how many of you there are, how long you have for your vacation, etc. so i can’t say whether driving or flying is cheaper, and i don’t know if you like to drive.
end of may is still pretty cool: bring a sweater.
Amy P
10 Feb 2010
I used to live in San Diego (I live in Iowa now) and in my opinion, San Diego is so much better than LA for a family trip. I would definitely make the trip up to Disneyland and check out the Hollywood sites, but you can do that in a couple of days. San Diego has a great zoo, Sea World, the Wild Animal park, great beaches (for a family, I would suggest La Jolla or Coronado). To go from Southern CA to San Francisco would be like driving from IL to TX – CA is a really long state. I would focus on either going to one or the other. LA is about 120 miles north of San Diego so it isn’t a long drive, but there is a lot of traffic. You can take the 101 and it’s a really pretty drive.
I would suggest flying instead of driving. It would take you at least 2 full days of driving to get there and it’s exhausting. Check out any of the travel sites like Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity, etc and they all have rates for flights, hotels and rental cars that you can get as a package.
Dylan
10 Feb 2010
First off, I’ve lived in California my whole life. It’s the best state in the country when it comes to things to do. You could spend a year here, going somewhere new every day and still not do everything.
Having said that, I personally would avoid Disneyland and SeaWorld. If you have kids I’d suggest Disneyland over SeaWorld, but to do both is a waste of your time while here.
Here’s the distances:
San Diego (SeaWorld) is two hours South of Los Angeles (Disneyland).
Los Angeles is about six hours away from San Francisco, depending on the route you take. To travel the entire state south to north takes 12-16 hours.
If you have the time, driving will be cheaper (depending on how many stops you take) and you’ll get the chance to see the U.S. If money isn’t an issue, and you’d rather focus solely on California, travel by air. However, remember that you will need to rent a car once you’re here if you do fly.
Concerning beaches, avoid Malibu! It’s a beautiful area, yes, but further north has much better beaches. Between Los Angeles and San Francisco is one of the most beautiful places on Earth: Big Sur, CA. Head down to Pfeiffer Beach here and you’ll get the beautiful California beach you’re looking for. Santa Cruz also has some amazing beaches, but you get more tourists here. And finally, closer to Los Angeles is Pismo Beach, which is near the Madonna Inn, a great place to stay if you don’t mind paying a few extra dollars. Look it up online, a very fun place to stay.
If you’re staying near the coast, any time of year is a decent time to go, as the weather stays fairly average. If you’ll be visiting anywhere inland, avoid the summer. It stays around 90-100 degrees from June to September. May is a great time to go, but you’re getting into the hotter part of the year. March and April are ideal.
As for hotels, go to: http://www.tripadvisor.com. Type in the area you want to stay, and it will bring up a list with the highest rated hotels around, from people who have actually stayed in them. I always use the site when I travel.
Here’s a little list of great nature spots:
1. Sequoia National Forest (world’s largest tree, beautiful scenery)
2. Lake Tahoe (beautiful lake, casinos, beautiful town)
3. Red Rock Canyon (great rock climbing that’s not too difficult)
4. Big Sur (indescribable)
5. Pismo Beach (great little Californian beach town with a great beach)
6. Yosemite National Park
7. Death Valley (dry salt lake bed)
Hope that helps!
silvermist
10 Feb 2010
*_~ So glad that you’re considering SF for a travel !
I grow up here, always wanted to leave Bay Area However after my travel for the last 7 years to Seattle, LA, San Diego, LAs VEgas, Florida, New Orlean, HK, China, Japan, Hawaii, Thailand and Europe.. I can tell you that there’s no place like the Bay Area!!
I just love the weather and the diverse culture here!! Traffic can be hectic but still bearable. Public transport is great! You can always take Bart, ferries, bus, taxi or cable car etc. However, if you don’t have much time or want to travel beyond the city – I think a car would help a lot. Yes, you have to pay for parking, but save you time to go more places faster..
Embarcadero is wicked nice, and it’s not THAT far, so you could really just walk down it to the Ferry Building. On Saturdays they do a nice farmer’s market and you can get lots of good stuff. Walk down to Pier 39.
GET THE San Franciso POPOUT Maps—
I loves these POPOUT map- you get to see where you are-
=) No Thinking required, especially on vacation. (look at the picture.)
I have about 20 of these map of different cities.. It was so useful when I was in Europe!
Ferry Building
Pier 39
Alcatraz or Angel Island
Japan town
Lombard Street
Chinatown
Coit Tower
Fishermen’s Wharf
Union Square for Shopping
Golden Gate Park – Walk across the bridge
Academy of Science
Union Street
Ocean Beach
Exploratorium
Palace of Fine Arts
San Francisco Zoo
Westfield Shopping Centre
DeYoung Museum
Yerba Buena Gardens
SF Giants Fair at AT&T Park
Take the ferry to Tiburon or Sausalito
Segates are great way to travel around the city.
Jetbue
or use http://www.hotwire.com
Dario
10 Feb 2010
there are quite a few sites that you can search that will likely show you great hotels at the best prices available. check out the website BookMe and you will be able to compare prices on all the reputable travel sites in just a couple minutes. it’s very convenient and will save you a bunch of time and money. Also, make sure you buy them online… otherwise they charge much higher fees for phone orders. good luck.
Disneyland, Malibu, and Hollywood are all in and around Los Angeles. SeaWorld is in San Diego, which is a couple hours south of Los Angeles. And San Francisco is about 6+ hours north of Los Angeles (that’s taking the quickest route… taking the scenic Highway 1, it’s more like 10 hours).
So I’m assuming San Francisco would be ruled out and you should probably ask this in the Los Angeles and San Diego sections.
However, as for beaches… Malibu is actually pretty unimpressive as a beach. The only reason to go is for the ability to say you went to Malibu. But if you were planning on making the trip between LA and San Diego (to go to SeaWorld), then La Jolla and Torrey Pines are both along the way (if you take highway 5, anyway), and both have fantastic/gorgeous beaches.
Driving vs. flying… it depends on how many people are going along and how many are willing to share 1 hotel room. It would take you a few days each way to drive, of course, which means you’d also have to pay for hotels, and would either have to add an extra 6 days (there and back) onto the trip, or cut into your time in California. So unless you’re a huge family or *want* to do a roadtrip to see the rest of the country/sites along the way, it’s probably cheaper and a lot easier to fly (as long as you book a few months in advance). Southwest is typically cheapish, and you can check sites like Orbitz for other deals.