Would it be expensive for European for California vacation ?
I’m German and i live in Paris at the moment and go to London once in a while. It’s seriously expensive, it took me 7 months to find an apartment. It’s worse than New York. I know New York, but i don’t know about Los Angeles or San Diego, would it be expensive to go there for vacation for someone from Paris or London ? . I was going to go for summer vacation to California for 3-4 weeks, so is it realllyyy Expensive like people say, like you’d have to bring 10.000. Dollars or something ?
One Response
burtlikko
15 Oct 2009
First of all, I hope you do come out here. The Euro is exchanging with the US Dollar at a favorable rate right now so this is a great time for someone from the EU to travel to the USA — you’ll add about 20% to the value of your money.
With that said, airfare isn’t that much more than you’d spend flying to London or Greece (unless you fly ValueJet or RyanAir and prowl around for the 1-Euro airfares).
You’ll have two big expenses to deal with when you get here — car and lodging. If you’re going to stay for a month, it might be worth it to you to contact a real estate agent to do a one-month sublet on an apartment. One place you might look is http://www.southbayrentals.com; what you’re looking for is a place that’s rented by a college student who will be going back home for a month while you’re on holiday. Expect to spend $1,500 to $2,000. The south bay region (Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach) is also a good place for you to be if you’re single and looking for nightlife as part of your holiday.
Renting a car is also a substantial expense. You should shop around and see if you can get a good deal on a month-long rental from one of the major companies and with a little shopping around you should be able to find a small car to rent for less than $1,000.
You will also want to spend a little bit of money on insurance for the car. The rental agency may make that available to you, especially if your insurance from France does not transfer. Los Angeles is a dense, urban environment like Paris or Berlin, only without the extensive public transportation network — there are busses and there is some light rail but it’s nothing like what you’re used to in Paris. You’ll pretty much need your own wheels. Do not expect to spend a lot of time on the American equivalent of an open, free-flowing autobahn because that pretty much doesn’t exist in Los Angeles.
After that, it’s a question of how much you want to spend on food and drink and the sorts of things you want to do. Disneyland will set you back at least $100 a person; Universal Studios is about $75 for a day’s worth of fun. The beach is free. There’s a wealth of interesting things to see and do here aside from that; have fun researching all the things you can do.
We hope to see you soon.