US help.

[Neways]

anyone go catalina island before, wonder if its worth the while go there


this is the screw driver i was talking about, universal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny4H27Cs7fI

Despite being a lady, I find this good too..

 

[crunsik]

if U buying Polo or Gap Woodbury vs some other outlet no difference.

What do want to get out from Disneyland? there is Disneyworld down in Florida.
if U into crazy rides then Disney not the place cause U can get it in Asia!
if U into crazy rides then six flags. so what is worth?

Hertz cost more, National cheaper. I don't have a tip you have to check with the team.

thx for the help. I am thinking of going to GC & Yosemite. Would it be possible to drive from SF to this two places?

Anyone can recommend where to stay at Yosemite? I read that you could rent lodging in the park itself and was wondering if any peeps have tried it before? could you share your experience?

 

[Shiny Things]

Yes travelling with 4 adults.. Shopping is our top priority. Theme parks will only be Universal Studios prob 1 or 2 days depending on how many day pass we can get. And stop by Warner Bros for a 3 hr tour.

We are prepared to rent a car as a lot of shopping will be done & it's pointless to use uber when there are 4 adults. We are choosing to stay either near Ventura or Wilshire Blvd as they are rather near to Universal Studios & Warner Bros. not considering Anaheim as we are not going Disney. If not DTLA, then where? U mention Santa Monica & Beverly Hills?

Then you're definitely doing the right thing by renting a car and staying on the west side. You want to stay as close to Sunset Boulevard as you can - Wilshire are a long way south, and if you stay on Sunset you'll chop about 15 minutes each way off the trip to Universal and Warners. Ventura's not bad, but you're on the wrong side of the Hollywood Hills from all the shopping.

And really, if shopping's what you care about, you REALLY want to stay near Santa Monica or Beverly Hills; that's where the good shopping is. Check Tripadvisor for hotels in Santa Monica (if you want to be on the beach) or West Hollywood (if you want to be near the nightlife).

If you do end up staying down around Wilshire, though, make sure you drop in on LACMA (the LA contemporary art museum), it's a great day out.

If time permits, perhaps might drive up to San Diego's Zoo (is this worth my time)?

Nah. From where you are, San Diego's going to be a three-hour drive each way. That'll be a very long day out, and honestly the Singapore Zoo is probably better anyway.

 

[Shiny Things]

thx for the help. I am thinking of going to GC & Yosemite. Would it be possible to drive from SF to this two places?

Anyone can recommend where to stay at Yosemite? I read that you could rent lodging in the park itself and was wondering if any peeps have tried it before? could you share your experience?

So I think I can shave some time off your trip.

You want to hit an outlet mall; Yosemite; Disneyland; and the Grand Canyon, right? Good thing is - if you don't mind hitting the Las Vegas outlet malls instead of Woodbury (and trust me, I've been there, it's all the same) you can do those pretty easily in one loop. The thing is, Woodbury is way over on the east coast - that's a huge detour from the other stuff you want to do, which is all on the west coast. America is gigantic, so you don't want to try to cover the east and west coasts in one trip.

Here's what you do:
1) Fly into San Francisco and spend a couple of days there detoxing from the flight.

2) Rent a car out of San Francisco and head east to Yosemite (about a four-hour drive). You can stay in the park (though it's expensive), or get a hotel just down the hill in the towns of Groveland or Mariposa. (If you want real rock-bottom-cheap, you can even stay in Modesto or Merced, but those are a couple of hours from the park.)

What you do next will depend on what time of year it is. The road past Yosemite over the Sierra Nevada is covered by snow for half of the year, and if you're there before mid-June there's only a fifty-fifty chance it'll be open. So:

3a) If the Tioga Pass road over Yosemite is open, take it! You drive up over the Sierra Nevada mountains, down the back into the cute little town of Bishop where you can stop for the night (stay at the Bishop Creekside Inn, trust me on this). The next morning, wrap up warm and head up over the White Mountains (where you can stop and admire four-thousand-year-old bristlecone pine trees) and back down into the desert of Nevada. From there it's a quick four-hour blast down to Las Vegas, which is your next stop.

3b) If the Tioga Pass road is closed, head south toward Bakersfield, then east toward Las Vegas. This drive is a lot more boring, but if you like deserty landscapes you're in for a treat: you can detour north to Death Valley (don't do this in the summer, it's called DEATH Valley for a reason), or south for a side-trip through the picturesque Mojave Desert. Either way, you'll end up in Vegas.

4) Spend a couple of days in Vegas! It's fun, and you can scratch your shopping itch at the Las Vegas Premium Outlets. Then,

5) Head east again, toward the Grand Canyon South Rim (don't make a mistake and go to the West Rim, it's nowhere near as impressive). Stay a night in Grand Canyon Village if you can; or if GCV is sold out, stay down the road in Flagstaff or Cameron. (Hint: the Cameron Trading Post is a great place to pick up Navajo and Hopi artifacts for souvenirs.)

If you've got some extra time at this point, you can go a bit further and catch Antelope Canyon, Meteor Crater, and the Painted Desert, all of which are within a few hours' drive of Flagstaff. But when you're done exploring Arizona, you'll want to head back toward Los Angeles - instead of going back through Las Vegas, you can save some time by heading south toward...

6) On your way to Los Angeles, stop in Palm Springs. This is where Hollywood stars in the fifties and sixties kept their home-away-from-home, and you can take a bus tour up the hills to see some incredible celebrity houses. There's also the Desert Hills outlets just down the road if you want to scratch that shopping itch again.

7) The good thing about coming into Los Angeles from the east is that Anaheim - and Disneyland - is right there. Stop in Anaheim, do the Disneyland thing.

8) Drive to LAX airport, dump the car, and head back home to the real world.

Your map will look a little something like this if the road over the back of Yosemite is open, or something like this if it's not

 

[patryn33]

San Diego - zoo, safari park and sea world
Zoo alone maybe Singapore zoo just a good no need to travel so far to go see some animals one can find at home.

 

[Shiny Things]

I'd like to get some feasibility sensing on my west coast plan for June'2016. Group member: 3 adult + 2 child (age 8 & 4). Planning to drive car almost the whole time (except during in SF). Only 1 car driver in group.

That's going to be A LOT of driving. Get yourself something nice.

3 (Saturday) Enroute to San Diego - USS Midway Museum
4 (Sunday) SD Zoo
5 (Monday) SD Sea World + Enroute to LA
6 (Tuesday) LA - California Science Center, Hollywood, etc
7 (Wednesday) LA - Santa Monica, etc

You're bouncing all over LA and SD here, and visiting Disneyland while you're jetlagged isn't gonna be much fun for the kids. Tip: when you get to LA, stay in West Hollywood for the first couple of days - that puts you in the middle of Santa Monica/CSC/Hollywood, and you can use taxis to get everywhere. Once you've gotten over the jetlag, pick up your car and head to Anaheim (for Disneyland) and onward to San Diego (though personally I'd skip SD entirely and put the time toward getting to the Grand Canyon).

8 (Thursday) Enroute from LA to Grand Canyon -> is this realistically feasible? Should break the day in between?
9 (Friday) Grand Canyon whole day

Getting to the GC in a day is doable but it's not going to be much fun, especially if you're the only driver. That's eight solid hours of driving, which probably means 10-11 once you include food stops/toilet breaks, in forty-degree heat because you're doing it in June, and it's literally going to be eight solid hours of this.

13 (Tuesday) Enroute to Yosemite via White Mountain & Tioga Pass -> is this realistically feasible? Should break the day in between?
14 (Wednesday) Yosemite whole day

This one you should absolutely break. Stop in Bishop for the night before you try to do the drive over Yosemite, if Tioga Pass is open.

Also, be careful with this! If you get unlucky and the Tioga Pass road hasn't opened yet (even in the second week of June it's no better than a coin flip) you're going to either need to ditch White Mountain and take the long road via Bakersfield, or go all the way up to Reno and then come back down to Yosemite via Lake Tahoe. Either way, that'll add a lot of distance.

Any inputs to my draft plan above, please? Thanks in advance!

Everything else looks good. You'll have a blast.

 

[crunsik]

Firstly, a big thank you @Shiny Things for the detailed recommendation and posting at such early hours!!

I wanted to visit these areas in the first week of June but I think I would push it back 1-2 weeks and consider going in mid-June or the week after to increase the chances of Tioga pass being open!

Would you think that Santa Monica can be included during the period in LA? since its a 30mins drive out and i heard that the beach & the ladies are wonderful

So I think I can shave some time off your trip.

You want to hit an outlet mall; Yosemite; Disneyland; and the Grand Canyon, right? Good thing is - if you don't mind hitting the Las Vegas outlet malls instead of Woodbury (and trust me, I've been there, it's all the same) you can do those pretty easily in one loop. The thing is, Woodbury is way over on the east coast - that's a huge detour from the other stuff you want to do, which is all on the west coast. America is gigantic, so you don't want to try to cover the east and west coasts in one trip.

Here's what you do:
1) Fly into San Francisco and spend a couple of days there detoxing from the flight.

2) Rent a car out of San Francisco and head east to Yosemite (about a four-hour drive). You can stay in the park (though it's expensive), or get a hotel just down the hill in the towns of Groveland or Mariposa. (If you want real rock-bottom-cheap, you can even stay in Modesto or Merced, but those are a couple of hours from the park.)

What you do next will depend on what time of year it is. The road past Yosemite over the Sierra Nevada is covered by snow for half of the year, and if you're there before mid-June there's only a fifty-fifty chance it'll be open. So:

3a) If the Tioga Pass road over Yosemite is open, take it! You drive up over the Sierra Nevada mountains, down the back into the cute little town of Bishop where you can stop for the night (stay at the Bishop Creekside Inn, trust me on this). The next morning, wrap up warm and head up over the White Mountains (where you can stop and admire four-thousand-year-old bristlecone pine trees) and back down into the desert of Nevada. From there it's a quick four-hour blast down to Las Vegas, which is your next stop.

3b) If the Tioga Pass road is closed, head south toward Bakersfield, then east toward Las Vegas. This drive is a lot more boring, but if you like deserty landscapes you're in for a treat: you can detour north to Death Valley (don't do this in the summer, it's called DEATH Valley for a reason), or south for a side-trip through the picturesque Mojave Desert. Either way, you'll end up in Vegas.

4) Spend a couple of days in Vegas! It's fun, and you can scratch your shopping itch at the Las Vegas Premium Outlets. Then,

5) Head east again, toward the Grand Canyon South Rim (don't make a mistake and go to the West Rim, it's nowhere near as impressive). Stay a night in Grand Canyon Village if you can; or if GCV is sold out, stay down the road in Flagstaff or Cameron. (Hint: the Cameron Trading Post is a great place to pick up Navajo and Hopi artifacts for souvenirs.)

If you've got some extra time at this point, you can go a bit further and catch Antelope Canyon, Meteor Crater, and the Painted Desert, all of which are within a few hours' drive of Flagstaff. But when you're done exploring Arizona, you'll want to head back toward Los Angeles - instead of going back through Las Vegas, you can save some time by heading south toward...

6) On your way to Los Angeles, stop in Palm Springs. This is where Hollywood stars in the fifties and sixties kept their home-away-from-home, and you can take a bus tour up the hills to see some incredible celebrity houses. There's also the Desert Hills outlets just down the road if you want to scratch that shopping itch again.

7) The good thing about coming into Los Angeles from the east is that Anaheim - and Disneyland - is right there. Stop in Anaheim, do the Disneyland thing.

8) Drive to LAX airport, dump the car, and head back home to the real world.

Your map will look a little something like this if the road over the back of Yosemite is open, or something like this if it's not

 

[Hisashiburi]

For LA area beach towns, i like Newport beach n Laguna Beach.
Some really nice beach front houses there too at Newport.

Venice beach has interesting culture.
Body builders, basketballers, bikers
Mix of different cultures n people all in one spot. Kinda weird place though. Lol

Huntington beach is a surfing beach town but u can also go swimming there.

Check the photos online to see if those places interest u.

Oh, dont forget to go to IHOP.
Cheap pancake diner place.
Very american

 

[liemsc]

Nah. From where you are, San Diego's going to be a three-hour drive each way. That'll be a very long day out, and honestly the Singapore Zoo is probably better anyway.

San Diego - zoo, safari park and sea world
Zoo alone maybe Singapore zoo just a good no need to travel so far to go see some animals one can find at home.

Argh, this is disappointing.. I thought San Diego zoo is supposed to be among the best zoo in the world..? Alright, SD Zoo is crossed out then, to save my time.

Anyway, taking into account the inputs here (and other readings) I got so far, I'm now revising my itinerary to be like this. This now supposedly eliminate the two super-long drive that I had before.

Day #1 (Thursday) Arrival LAX 2pm, enroute to Hollywood apartment
2 (Friday) LA - California Science Center, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, etc
3 (Saturday) LA - Santa Monica, Venice
4 (Sunday) Citadel Outlet + Enroute to Anaheim
5 (Monday) Disneyland
6 (Tuesday) Enroute Anaheim to San Diego, Sea World
7 (Wednesday) USS Midway Museum + Enroute to Kingman
8 (Thursday) Enroute Kingman to Grand Canyon
9 (Friday) Grand Canyon + Enroute to Page (Antelope Canyon, Glen Canyon Dam, etc)
10 (Saturday) Enroute Page to Las Vegas
11 (Sunday) Las Vegas
12 (Monday) Enroute LV to Bishop via Death Valley. Overnight in Bishop.
13 (Tuesday) Enroute Bishop to Yosemite via Tioga Pass
14 (Wednesday) Yosemite whole day
15 (Thursday) Enroute Yosemite to Carmel Valley, Monterey. Overnight in Monterey
16 (Friday) Enroute to SF via Silicon Valley area
17 (Saturday) SF - Golden Gate Bridge + Park + California Academy of Sciences
18 (Sunday) Exploratorium + Fisherman Wharf + Pier-39, etc
19 (Monday) Spare time morning. Night flight back to SG

Accommodation wise, I already have candidates (and some already booked) in all the places, EXCEPT for SF! It seems almost mission impossible to get a place for 5, with rather good review, not too far from the places I want to visit above, with budget of less than USD 300 per night

 

[fone]

I'd beg to differ on San Diego Zoo Safari, if you have not been to any Safari before, it is a different experience, though probably not as good as African safaris.

 

[patryn33]

Argh, this is disappointing.. I thought San Diego zoo is supposed to be among the best zoo in the world..? Alright, SD Zoo is crossed out then, to save my time.

check out their comments and U can decide for yourself. I have ppl from Taiwan that loved it so much that they (both adults in their mid 20s) went there twice back to back in 1st USA vacation.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/05/travel/tripadvisor-best-zoos/

 

[Shiny Things]

Firstly, a big thank you @Shiny Things for the detailed recommendation and posting at such early hours!!

De nada. I live in California anyway, so it's my timezone.

I wanted to visit these areas in the first week of June but I think I would push it back 1-2 weeks and consider going in mid-June or the week after to increase the chances of Tioga pass being open!

If you can slip it a couple of weeks it's totally worth it. That drive over Tioga Pass is just stupendously beautiful.

Would you think that Santa Monica can be included during the period in LA? since its a 30mins drive out and i heard that the beach & the ladies are wonderful

Oh god yeah. Santa Monica's not that hard to get to; make sure you wander down the beach toward Venice as well.

 

[Shiny Things]

6 (Tuesday) Enroute Anaheim to San Diego, Sea World
7 (Wednesday) USS Midway Museum + Enroute to Kingman
8 (Thursday) Enroute Kingman to Grand Canyon
9 (Friday) Grand Canyon + Enroute to Page (Antelope Canyon, Glen Canyon Dam, etc)
10 (Saturday) Enroute Page to Las Vegas
11 (Sunday) Las Vegas

You might find this week a bit exhausting. You're driving for two to six hours a day, and then doing a bunch of sightseeing on top of that. That said, the only way to cut it down would be to rip out Page, and Antelope Canyon and Glen Canyon are totally worth the trip (plus Cameron, which is on the way from the Grand Canyon village to Page). Book yourself a spa day when you get to Vegas.

Accommodation wise, I already have candidates (and some already booked) in all the places, EXCEPT for SF! It seems almost mission impossible to get a place for 5, with rather good review, not too far from the places I want to visit above, with budget of less than USD 300 per night

There's nothing you can do there unfortunately; San Francisco hotels are always horrifically expensive. You can try AirBNB, or just suck it up and pay the cash. (Or check Tripadvisor - there might be some hotels offering deals.)

 

[techman03]

hi guys,


can i get some tips on what to wear during december for guys in california? specifically SFO, LA , LV? i mean besides wearing a jacket.. thanks in advance

also gonna be driving Pacific Coast highway, any tips for which Prepaid data to use in PCH? im worries about the signal cos gonna be using google map for GPS

 

[Shiny Things]

hi guys,


can i get some tips on what to wear during december for guys in california? specifically SFO, LA , LV? i mean besides wearing a jacket.. thanks in advance

As Jenna Maroney would tell you, "have fun always carrying a light sweater".

Seriously, though, that's pretty much all you need. I live in SF, and it's low-teens to low-twenties here right now. You might get a few cold snaps where it gets down to single digits celsius in the mornings, but that's as bad as it'll get in SF and LA. Jeans, a t-shirt, a jumper or hoodie, and maybe one warm jacket will be plenty.

Las Vegas will get a bit colder, though. It's higher up, and in the desert, so it'll be colder in the mornings and you might even get a dusting of snow if you're lucky.

also gonna be driving Pacific Coast highway, any tips for which Prepaid data to use in PCH? im worries about the signal cos gonna be using google map for GPS

Mobile coverage along the PCH is very patchy no matter which network you're on, especially up around Big Sur. AT&T's got the best coverage (I don't think Verizon does prepaid), but I'd seriously recommend getting the Navigon GPS app so you don't have to rely on having data.

 

[critical888]

for driving, use offline gps safest!! example garmin, dont rely on phone that need data connection

 

[patryn33]

Here maps on iOS or android is free and supports offline maps
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.here.app.maps&hl=en

 

[critical888]

going to usa on thanksgiving day is bad, all the hotel prices are high hee

 

[crunsik]

De nada. I live in California anyway, so it's my timezone.


If you can slip it a couple of weeks it's totally worth it. That drive over Tioga Pass is just stupendously beautiful.



Oh god yeah. Santa Monica's not that hard to get to; make sure you wander down the beach toward Venice as well.

hi Shiny Things,

I was planning to add in Napa Valley before going off to Yosemite and would like to check if you have any recommendation for the wineries in Napa Valley? I read from Trip Advisor that Domaine Chandon is recommended. But I was wondering if there are others that I should also try?

btw are there sales during the 4th of July?

TIA

 

[a1v1n_]

Will there be irresistible sale on thanksgiving?

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