America Honeymoon

Hi MrsCtoBe, how about the Las Vegas/LA/San Francisco combination? A friend and I did LA as a holiday and actually went to sf for one day as it's so cheap and quick to fly there from LA (was in 2010, took an hour and cost £80 each prebooked from the uk). Things we did include Hollywood homes/sites tour, LA dodgers stadium, Santa Monica pier, Venice beach, Chinatown, night clubs in redondo beach, universal studios. In sf you could visit Alcatraz, cycle over the Golden Gate Bridge and go on a cable car.

My H2B and I went to vegas and SF in 2012 and honestly was so amazing, we seriously considered going back for our honeymoon. I was apprehensive of vegas at first as thought it would be a bit naff but it is so much fun and we found not as pricey as you may think. Things to do include Grand Canyon helicopter tour, the shows like cirque de soleil, bellagio fountains, mirage volcano, Fremont street, night time fly over the strip. We used trip advisor to research everything.

You would then be visiting 3 states, Cali, Nevada and potentially Arizona if you did a Grand Canyon tour. If you want beaches, perhaps end with LA, or an upscale hotel in vegas as some have amazing pools, and I hear San Diego is very lovely?

hope that helps. X

I am liking Critters idea. You could alternatively do the east coast? Do New York, Boston and then do the beach bit down in Florida? Alternatively you could do a mix including Washington DC or Philadelphia. I have been to the east coast and the west coast, l really enjoyed both.

I did a similar holiday when I was younger to the one Critter suggested, but in reverse.

Started at SF, then headed towards Vegas stopping along the way. After a few days in San Francisco, we went to Monterey for Whale Watching, stopped off at a very 'unique' hotel/steakhouse in St Luis Obispo, a couple of days in Santa Monica/Hollywood seeing the sights, 3 days on a ranch in Arizona and finished off with a few days in Vegas. Hands down one of the best holidays I've ever done. We went to Alcatraz, followed the 17 mile drive, to see the seals etc, stopped off at hoover dam, we saw so much and I enjoyed it so much that I'm hoping to repeat it in the future with H2B as we weren't together at the time and I think he'd love it!

My honeymoon was 3 weeks travelling the West Coast of USA and I would highly recommend it. We started in San Fran, spent 4 nights there and then hired a car on our last day. They we drove up to Napa Valley, Lake Tahoe (we were meant to go to Yosemite but it was changed due to the US government shutdown in 2013), Las Vegas, Los Angeles and then spent 3 days driving back up the coast to SF. We managed to do a bit of everything, walking/sightseeing, partying, theme parks, beach.

Thanks so much for the help, really like the ideas. So going to bring up the honeymoon subject with the OH again and go from there. Could I ask roughly how much the trips cost you all? Just to get a guestimate on our budget xxx

We went in June 2012 and watched expedia like hawks to pick the cheapest direct flights possible. We did four days vegas (Virgin direct flights) and three days SF direct virgin flight home (Gatwick out, heathrow in). Stayed at New York, New York in vegas (4*) and a 3* in sf. We found hotels in vegas much cheaper than sf and a much better standard. We paid around £850-900 each plus am additional £160 or so each for helicopter trip. We took £1600 spending money for the week which was ample for us but didn't massively gamble or drink.

We paid £800 to do LA (with the day trip to sf) for 9 days, also virgin direct flights. We stayed in a travelodge though! Took about £600 (was a bit younger and with a friend) and ran out out of money but did manage to see all the sites. I know for a honeymoon you are going to want a different type of trip but hopefully these prices will be useful as a baseline :-) xx

Including everything (flights, car hire, hotels, spending money) we spent about £5k. We could have opted for cheaper hotels and eating out had we have been on a tighter budget - and likewise we could have doubled it to stay in amazing hotels had we have had the money!