Okay, here's a challenge for y'all!
We're planning a rather ambitious road trip for next year, probably Spring or Summer 2009.
It will be 2 adults (30's), 3 kids (16, 11, and 6 at the time of travel)..
We know where we want to go and how long (approximately) we want the trip to last but other things are still up in the air. Oh, and none of us have ever been to California.
We plan on about 14 days total (not set in stone) and the itinerary is something like this;
Leave our city (San Antonio, TX) and head for Anaheim, CA (
Disney!). Google maps says 19 hours and we figure with 2 drivers we can do this in 2 days, staying overnight half way (where ever half way is from here to Anaheim?
).
We planned on 3 days at Disney (is this enough? I've been told it should be but I'd like other opinions), and are considering a package deal with hotel and food and park tickets all in one. Could we do Disney in 2 days??
Leave Anaheim for a day (??) sightseeing in Los Angeles (Hollywood). I think a day is enough for that but I don't know, that's why I'm here.
Probably spend the night somewhere around there unless it's too expensive? Next day drive to Big Sur, spend one day and perhaps the night.
From Big Sur head to San Francisco. NO idea what to do or see, just know we want to go.
Could spend 2 days but not sure if it's needed.
From San Francisco we'd head home but we'd like to take a different route to get to see the Grand Canyon, maybe spend the day, and from there home to San Antonio.
So, that's the plan. So far we've calculated it to be about 4000 miles round trip (not including any driving around sightseeing) and about $700-800 in gas (for our own vehicle). Obviously Disney will suck up a lot of our budget so we have to watch it on the rest of the trip.
The decisions we have to make:
Should we use our own vehicle? We have an older but well maintained minivan that gets decent mileage and is roomy enough to provide comfort for the kids. Of course we'd have a TOTAL checkup by our mechanic before going anywhere, plus we have road service, plus we'd have some sort of back-up plan should the worst happen (a major breakdown) with money set aside for the back-up plan. Need to work on the back-up plan details though! Rent something else if something goes wrong? Buy some Greyhound tickets to get us where we need to go? (ugh, bus phobia!)
We have considered the possibility of purchasing a used pop-up camper to pull behind our van. Need to check towing limits with the van of course, but while this would slow us down and increase gas use a little, it would save us a LOT in hotel costs. Even when you consider the costs of RV parks at around $50 a night. Unless you think we could find hotels cheap enough to balance it all out? But then again if we go with this option we'd own the pop up for future trips...
We also talked about renting a SMALL RV but the few sites I've checked rates on, well, it looks like at least a couple grand, plus gas and mileage. I think that option is going to make it too pricey even with the savings on hotels.
If it turns out we don't feel totally secure driving our own van (it
is older)... I wonder how much it would cost to rent a minivan for such a trip?
So those are our options and questions. I figure we have 8 months or more to figure it all out so there's time. We would like to do this as economically as possible though.
I just want some feedback as we've never done anything like this before. We are not opposed to flying but just figured it would be cheaper and much more interesting to drive, even with gas prices the way they are. We could be wrong though. The older kids are really into the whole "seeing the country" thing and a road trip seems more memorable.
I also have no clue about California... are there other "must see" places and things I might have missed?
How to cut costs for hotels... without resorting to driving while tired (we won't do that!)... we aren't picky, honestly, and have stayed in some ratty places, and consider it an adventure for the most part. As long as it's fairly clean (I'll bring my own bedding if needed!) and has working a/c and a shower, we're good. We stayed at a few cheapie places on our last weekend road trip, in a double room and with a blowup bed for the 5 year old. No big deal. It does NOT have to be the Hilton!
Thanks in advance for your input. I'm excited, but my head is spinning with possibilities!
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