Holidays

Did it 18 months ago. We stayed in San Fran - Monterey - Cambria - Santa Barbara - Santa Monica - San Diego. One of the best holidays I've had.

 

I had a week's conference here and paid for an extra week in the hotel for a holiday with wife and kids (which went t1t$ up because of the kids getting chicken pox and not being allowed to fly). The conference was all mornings and a few afternoons with lots of organised touristy trips. I also went two days early to spend some time exploring Valletta (prehistoric museum, warry stuff, the Inquisition, the Knights stuff and trying find my Grandad's favourite bar/air-raid shelter from WWII). It was very odd speaking to locals who speak to you in thick norf landahn accents and then break into funny Arabic when speaking to their friends/family.

I was made to feel uneasy/unwelcome when I mistakenly went into local's cafes/bars twice off the main drag in Valletta (I should have known better and these experiences were totally unrepresentative of my time there and everybody I met).

The second week, on my own, wasn't that much fun as I had, pretty much, "done the tourist stuff" and sitting by the pool on on a beach as a Billy-no-mates soon began to grate. I made a few contacts with students from the Medical School and they showed me around (as an atheist, all the religious stuff left me cold) and say thank-you I offered to take them out for dinner. Five took me up on the offer and they paid for a taxi to take us to Marsalokk for a "proper" Maltese dinner. The Maltese wine was excellent and the "finest seafood in the Mediterranean" was exceptionally "meh" (I'm a keen sea angler and the bass/bream we were served wouldn't be allowed to be landed on any boat I've ever been on they were so small) - the tuna/dolphinfish pies/pasties were, at a push, alright. It was odd listening to the students as the "Hopleaf" flowed pointing out that they were looking to start there lives elsewhere in the World as there was, practically, a zero chance of getting a job in Malta and how insular they felt growing up in such a tiny country.

 

You should try backpacking in Laos in the 90's, fortunately sign language works everywhere.

Sometimes you just need to be more patient, it's pointless stick drawing a television in the mud to someone who's never even seen one.

Mind you there's one word that is the same in every language .... can anyone guess what it is?

 

To those who did Highway 1 - did you pre book it all yourself, or go with a company? Or just book when you're there?

Cheers for the info so far!

 

Melt.

 

Booked it all in advance. Tweak one of the itineraries above. We've done this holiday a number of times so feel free to pm me with any questions

 

Booked it all myself. We made a list of everywhere we wanted to go and tried to create some sort of itinerary to fit in to 2 weeks. I used Google maps to calculate travel times using highway 1 to get between each place. I booked a hotel at each destination as I like having everything planned out in front of me and knowing we had somewhere to stay meant we could relax without worrying about a bed for the night. I even created the route on my TomTom using lots of way-points to force the device to choose highway 1 the whole way. We hired a Mustang which is a bit corny but it was well worth having a big car with a decent engine as we did over 1,000 miles.

 

You know very well that isn't true.

 

Manchester United. No, that's two words ... Manure then ...

 

Taxi

 

Just did it. Hired from Avis, pre booked at SF airport (got an upgrade on arrival to any car I liked as my wife's cases wouldn't fit the boot of a Mustang or Cadillac) - I would advise a couple of days acclimatisation in SF as the time gap will kill you and wont be safe for driving distances. Anybody could spend a week or two alone in San Francisco without getting bored. Do the ferry across to Sausalito, even consider a drive up through Sonoma and Napa valley before Highway 1 - my wife loved the vineyards. I loved Sears Point Raceway.

I'd second Santa Barbara as a place to visit. It's lovely and do the tourist bus tour. The guy who does it a expat Brit who is a rock star's brother.

The hotels are geared up to travellers so you can be flexible if you decide to stay an extra day somewhere you like. Oddly it rained hard when we got to Santa Monica so we bailed on San Diego and headed via Big Bear Lake and Lake Arrowhead (great mountain drives and nice stopover) to Vegas.

I'd just check you hire car has a satnav or buy or adapt a UK one to US maps before you get there if it doesn't.

 

I'm planning to do this in the summer too, or something maybe a bit higher up so I'm going to pinch all the advice too!

 

Whale-watching trip either around Monterey Bay or to the Farallon Islands out of 'Frisco? Seasonal with different species at different seasons ...

 

Nick some ideas of some of the USA touring guys - this one is the main motorcycle tour company but their itinerary works for what you want to do in a car too, if you need to judge distance.

http://www.eaglerider.com/motorcycle-tours/guided-motorcycle-tours

 

I just hired a car and booked a hotel for the first night I arrived. Everything else was on the hoof.

 

Taxi

 

Always much more flexible and my modus operandi too. That way you can linger or move on more quickly as the mood takes. You wouldn't be bothered about not having a place lined up every night in this country. Just sit down with a pint and go on Late Rooms (my favourite) or some other similar site and get sorted in ten minutes. Same applies abroad. Well, certainly in the States ...

 

"Huh"

 

Jiggy-jiggy?

 

godfatheryourefullof****mate

 

Thanks for all the info - really appreciate it Think we'd like to book a few days to start us and a few days to end it, but do it more ad-hoc. Think it'll be more expensive, but i'll only do it once!

 

Aaah, didn't notice it is GF asking

Menage

 

Bingo!

I mean taxi but bingo might be as well ..... aw forget it!

 

I'm off to New York and Boston in September for my birthday. I've been to New York before but haven't visited Boston. Has anyone been and know of some good places to go?

 

Boston is lovely and you can walk around the city, have a visit to Harvard

 

I'll be off to Vancouver for work in October - not anticipating much free time but anyone know of any must-sees? Cheers

 

Got a bit of a plan together. San fran 3 nights. Yosemite 2 nights. Monterey 2 nights. Cambria 1 night. Santa Barbara 1 night. Santa Monica 2 nights. San Diego 4 nights!

 

Great trip did that trip over 20 years ago, stay out of LA, Defo pop over to Mexico if I was you for a night from San Diego but not sure if it still so easy

 

There's a cable-car/skyline ride up Grouse Mountain. The museum of anthropology has loads of native indian artefacts (totem poles etc.). On Vancouver Island there's the Royal British Columbia museum in Victoria which is interesting and well-presented albeit a bit expensive as I remember it. Further north on Vancouver Island there are lots of little places to potter about in on the west coast.

Vancouver itself is a chilled out, laid-back, cosmopolitan city with any number of mellow bars and restaurants to hang out in.

 

Sounds superb. We actually dipped in to LA between Santa Barbara and Santa Monica. We took a drive through the Hollywood hills and Beverly Hills and stopped near the sign by a little park. Not many tourists and was easy to park.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/3187+Canyon+Lake+Dr,+Los+Angeles,+CA+90068,+USA/@34.1274976,-118.3290401,760m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x80c2bf07045279bf:0xf67a9a6797bdfae4!2sHollywood,+Los+Angeles,+CA,+USA!3b1!8m2!3d34.0928092!4d-118.3286614!3m4!1s0x80c2bf0bad6941b7:0x51ce6b52ec062379!8m2!3d34.1265661!4d-118.326549

 

Off to Costa Rica and Ecuador next month with work. Anyone been to either of these countries before?

 

I've drank coffee from both if it helps ... I recommend either

 

Costa Rica four times. Wadda you wanna know?

 

What's it like? How's the food? How are the people?

 

I went there about 10 years ago, great experience but if you are taking buses. Anywhere it takes forever, people are great and pretty safe, when it rains, boy does it rain, saw one off the volcanos semi erupt, pretty amazing to watch the laver at night, I thought we were lucky but nor rare at all, was in a village somewhere and bumped into another watfird fan who was on his honeymoon