Planning next years summer holiday and thinking of going to California for 4 to 6 weeks. Does anyone know of any cheap and cheerful accomodation options, a quick search on google suggests California and cheap arent happy bedfellows.

Cheers.

Every city and town has a range of budget motels which are convenient and cheap.
National Parks all have good campsites, and if you walk or bike in, they cost pittance (although the ones nearer cities tend to attract homeless people)
Don’t camp in “caravan” parks – they’re setup for RVs. 🙁
There are some youth hostels around, I stayed in one in Mammoth Mountain, and also one near Yosemite.

your best bet is get a Rough Guide book. Loads of info in there.

When I was there in 2006, there were voucher books (or vouchers in local info booklets maybe) with offers for cheap motels in the local area. I don’t recall it being super cheap, but not super pricey either. I used them from LA to San Fran and never ended up in a dump/Psycho hotel 🙂

The US is set up around the car (assuming you’re driving?), wherever you go there’s boatloads of motels so you won’t be short of somewhere to stay.

Yup Rough Guide or look for folk letting out rooms online?

As you say it’s not cheap, but camping is good if you’re not in cities.

Reccomend the national parks campsite route. Me and Mrs taxi rented a car at L.A bought a tent and camping gear from a wallmart along with a campsite guide and had a great 4wk Honymoon.

Taxi, sounds a good idea that.

Oakland?
That will be cheap, unfortunately, Oakland a Cheerful do not go together

Are you mobile, or going to stay in one place mainly?

If we’re staying in one place for any length of time in the states vrbo.com is the first place we look at for a home/condo etc- the cost saving, especially in terms of being able to cook in are pretty worthwhile.
If you’re moving around, camping, as said above, or an RV, especially out of season.

2retro4u

If you get to my part of a very large state, let me know and we’ll ride. “My part” is located about 15km north of the Golden Gate Bridge.

I feel extremely sure I’ll make it to your part. Thanks very much.

🙂

Check out KOA and Super 8.