benlumley said:I went last year on holiday - had a convertible Mustang for two weeks and went in a big loop - San Diego > Orange County > LA > Vegas > Hoover Dam > Death Valley > Las Vegas > Death Valley > Yosemite > San Francisco > Coast Road to LA > Orange County > San Diego (plus all the roads/sights in between).
Mustang was very different to a z - swung about like a boat on a rough sea even just changing lanes on the freeway - fortunately, there are relatively few twisty roads! Made a nice noise when you put your foot down though and was fun to be in. Also feels very 'American' - combination of size/handling/autobox/etc I think- which added to the whole thing for me. I'd definitely recommend a mustang or similar- Although see you drive an M - so not sure how you'd find the speed. It was a bit slower than my 3.0 according to the internet, but was very torquey/muscle car like though so didn't really notice! Maybe you could get a Mustang GT....
Also - despite Americans moaning about the cost of fuel, we did 2,500 miles on around £200 in fuel - so it's cheap.
As to where to go - first off, I'm more about the countryside than cities. So in order - if you can get to the Grand Canyon, I'd definitely recommend that. Awesome sight, got to see it! As others have said, pacific coast highway is great from SF to LA - although it was foggy when we drove it- fair distance to drive up and back a weekend though. Yosemite is well worth seeing too - the valley and the national park in general. But again, a long way. Death Valley is good to see, and oh so hot - roof down was intolerable for more than a few mins in the middle of the day, but also a long way. On the non countryside front - SF is a really nice city, well worth a day or two!
And then driving between any of these places - in a day you can go from desert to the green lushness of yosemite and a real mix of different types of town along the way - so there's so much see in as you go.
Could be worth flying up to SF and going places from there one weekend? Internal flights in the US can be fairly cheap.
Also - distances are big, and the roads are very straight with little changing scenery in places - eg across deserts. So it can be hard to stay alert - we found it very hard at night, especially once you started to get tired. So recruit co-drivers and share the driving!
wow bet you had lots of fun
yehh im thinking maybe good idea to fly up to san fran cos thts gonna save me a lot of time
i will see whats happening with other ppl, cos a few have been on this triop before so will know what is do-able in the time weve got to do what we want
def wanna go SF and san diego if i can, and maybe if a group are heading into vegas i might pop along and put a dollar on red or something
i will keep you all updated/ask further quesitions as the trip goes on,
less than two weeks to go
