yeah thats definantly up our street.

some running and some hiking in the back country.

taking minimal with me as well as i plan to stock up on my hiking gear while im out there – need a new tent as the last one (after being used every day for 6 months ) has gone porous – even fabsil didnt help and the alu poles have cracked/split/beenrepaired in several places. the only issue is ill need to make sure its rain proof – the big agnes (american brand) tent we had at dusk till dawn was about as waterproof as a newspaper hat.

and some new jeans – america seems to be the only place i can find reasonable priced decent quality 32waist 34 leg jeans.

So wait – how many are going?

I’d get Marmot tents every time. Brilliant and light, and properly designed too. A lot of American ones only have a fly over the top part of the tent, allowing lots of splashing from the ground.

I’d look at booking through Trailfinders – last year we paid £3k for two of us, including BA flights, 14 days car hire, and 14 days of 3-4 star hotels in Vegas, SF, Yosemite, Grand Canyon etc.

Looked at booking myself through Expedia etc and couldn’t get close.

Also I’d definitely book Death Valley accomodation early. On the evening we arrived (pre-booked), another couple arrived without pre-booking. Hotel was booked up so the other couple had to move on. Next hotel with accomodation was 50 miles away on unlit desert roads…

just me and the mrs.

no little rats yet.

Still seems expensive – hiring an SUV?

We used Holiday Autos UK for rental – they offer a higher level of insurance than buying directly from the Hirer (Alamo in our case) which meant we didn’t need to buy additional CDW insurance or anything.

We also bought it via Quidco so got cashback…

29 Nov 12 holiday autos £846.56 – £101.59 Paid 10 Jan 13

Oh, just checked Expedia for late June -> July – got over £900 for the flights alone, so I guess you are getting a good deal!

TR, BA have always been excellent for me when I’ve rung up and said, “I want to book WT+ flights both ways, and then use miles to upgrade. What’s the best flight to do that on?”

If you’re a BAEC member, they seem to treat it as a personal challenge to make sure they get you the best deal as well! 🙂

Interesting thread as we are doing something similar this summer as well. Flying into SFO and returning from SEA. Contrary to the popular choices we are starting in the south and driving north. Only thing booked so far are the flights. Still waiting to see where we want to go / see while we are there before we look at where we might stay. Leaning towards having three or 4 “base camps” from which we do the sight seeing / experiences and then just do a couple of bigger drives on a fewer days. Already beginning to think we could be coming back again in a year or two as we will have found some amazing places that we feel we need to visit again / spend more time at.

going to go see trailfinders on saturday afternoon to explore options.

aiming to book by monday anyway