USA Road Trip (17 July 2016) - The Start

Introduction

The halfway mark of July 2016 marked the end of work for a brief two months and the start of a two month sabbatical. So no thinking about work until September. The plan was to travel the west coast of the US for a month cruising slowly taking the sights in. The next bunch of blog post describe our trip, what we did, what we did not do and if you're planning on something similar it may give you some ideas.

The plan ahead

The plan was to start in Las Vegas head north through Death Valley ending up in San Francisco. Then drive down the Pacific Coastal Highway to San Diego. Then back across to Las Vegas. Following which there is no plan for five days and then back to London. The duration of the trip was a month and was with the whole family.

Key things I picked up before the road trip was to do the pacific costal highway from San Francisco travelling south. So you're on the Pacific Ocean side of the road when travelling down the country. Is this significant i'm not sure but I thought that it was a useful tip.

Additionally take a paper map, even with GPS a paper map is indispensable. There are long period of the road where phone signal is non existent. The GPS add ons are pretty useless too.

Arrival and Las Vegas - first day

We arrived in Las Vegas late afternoon from our flight from the United Kingdom. The airport is made for easy access to tourists and is quite efficient. For hire car pick up there is a shuttle bus to take you to a different location. The car hire companies are geared to offer you add on's. Typically these are additional insurance (breakdown and towing), petrol refills (higher rate then standard petrol stations and car upgrades. We had opted for a large SUV for a month's comfort. But we could see a lot of people had opted for Mustangs.

As much as this seems like the ideal west coast touring vehicle the heat makes open top touring prohibitive unless you want to end up a crispy lobster. If you do opt for a Mustang its inevitably going to be yellow. If you're going to get a mustang be specific else you'll end looking like a lemon.

We eventually picked up our enormous beast the Ford Expedition. Automatic and with only 1506 miles on the meter. It was a 2016 model in metallic grey. Sadly no GPS built in, it is an add on you buy when hiring the car. The GPS platforms you get with cars these days are absolutely crap but we fell into the trap and opted for it.

Las Vegas - Strip

Driving to the Las Vegas strip is fairly straightforward and takes about thirty minutes based on traffic. We stayed at the Venetian which was straight forward to get to and easy to park. It was only our second time driving an automatic but the whole process was straight forward.

We spent our first day walking the strip and getting the know the Las Vegas main strip of casinos. After one casino they are pretty much all the same. Uniform dens to draw you in and keep you there. With that said we had a phenomenal time at the Venetian, making maximum use of the pool and shops there.

The city absolutely never sleeps and is microcosm of our world. The city has something for everyone the chancer, the party groups, great entertainment line up and amazing hotel facilities. You lose track of time the longer you are in Las Vegas. The venues are designed to take you in and you never want to get out.

Our first few days were spent relaxing at the Venetian and generally visiting places on the strip.

Tip for long trips

Changing money is an issue so we took out US Dollar card from the post office. You can use the cards as ATM card (fixed charge) and as credit cards (no currency or commission charges). You obviously pay a FX charge when you top up the card but once you've done that there are no further bank charges. This is phenomenal is you are planning a long trip or using a lot of money where the percentage based charging structure will bleed you dry.