Winters in Canada are long, very long. On November 18th we had the first day with sub-zero temperatures and it seems like to comes to no end. Since 2008 we go on vacation in the winter months but this year we hadn’t planned anything because of our immigration end of September. But here comes in one of the benefits of my new job, one of our most important trade fairs took place in Southern California. And although it’s winter in California too, the temperatures over there are around 20-25 degrees Celsius above zero. Lucky me…

But how about Danielle? We decided that she would follow me and she took an Air Canada flight to Los Angeles (LAX) on the 5th of February. At LAX she got a rental car from SIXT, we got a great deal, which was a Volvo XC70 with which se drove south over the highway 1 along the pacific coast towards San Diego. She arrived only minutes after the trade fair was done and here our short Californian winter break started. After an early diner at the Cheesecake Factory and walking around in the bay area we went to our hotel the Hampton Inn since Danielle was tired from the trip and I was tired from the show. The hotel was located close to the railroad and we dubbed it Hampton Ding Ding Ding Ding since that was the sound where we woke up with on Friday morning.

After a fast breakfast we started the day with getting me singed up as a second driver on the car before we drove to Balboa park. We parked our car and wandered around ending up with a visit to the Natural History Museum with an exhibit about “The Discovery of King Tut”. This was the most beautiful part of the museum. After continuing our tour through the park we decided to visit the famous San Diego Zoo.

At the entrance we were blown away by the entrance fee, 48$ for a zoo… But since we won’t come here often we decided to go for it. And it was worth every single dollar. This is by far the most beautiful zoo we’ve ever seen. It comes close to a Disney theme park and the animals really seemed happier as in every other zoo where we have been. Also the amount of animals was huge. Needless to say we enjoyed this visit including free bus tours in the park and a the ride on the Skyfari Aerial Tram. But we wanted to see more of San Diego…

In the evening we visited Coronado Island. We went there by car and drove over the huge Coronado bridge. We parked our car near the beach, which is considered to be one of the most beautiful beaches of the United States, before we got to the famous Coronado Resort where we sat down for evening dinner until sunset came close from which I wanted to take pictures. It became cold soon when the sun went away and after a coffee we went back to the hotel.

Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding…5:30am and we woke up to leave San Diego behind today. We first drove towards the La Jolla area which is the northwestern part of San Diego and famous for its beaches which are sometimes visited by seals. And we were really lucky to spot a couple or maybe not so lucky because of the smell they bring with them…



After a short coffee break we drove further north and stopped in Oceanside where we walked a long the beach, I guess this is where we got ourselves a bit of a tan from the sun. After having lunch at Tin Fish we drove further to Anaheim where we were staying int the same hotel as where we stayed during our West Coast trip in 2012.

For dinner we went to Downtown Disney and ordered pizza…I still need to get used to sizes in inches…

Both tired from the driving and being outside we went to bed early because we had two days with sightseeing ahead of us.

The last 3 weeks we started booking the hotels for our USA West Coast rip. It was a lot of work but it was great to do. We search for hotels in places we wanted to stay looked at the prices and either did a priceline, a hotwire or a direct booking for the hotel. It was nice to do this since we learned a lot about the areas we’d liked to go. We even changed a city because Sanders former Dutch boss send live information about their experiences.

Let’s start with the first day, we arrive around noon in Los Angeles and then we will get our rental car and drive a couple of hours north in the direction of San Francisco. The place where we stay is Santa Maria which is about 3,5 hours driving from the airport. We booked, or better to say won, this hotel on priceline.com. Booking via priceline is fun since it’s always a surprise where you end up. After selecting the area, the price we wanted to pay and the class we clicked on ‘BID’ and waited. The first couple tries where misses but soon we won the Holiday Inn Santa Maria.

Then the trip continues towards San Francisco. We wanted to stay at Fisherman’s Wharf but due to a major event in the city the hotel prices where far above what we would like to spend. It started with 250$ for a reasonable hotel. So we checked out what would be a good alternative and we found out that there was a nice hotel in Berkeley within walking distance from the BART. The BART is a kind of metro which could bring us to important areas in San Francisco within less than 30 minutes. We booked the Holliday Inn Express & Suites in Berkeley.

After 3 nights in the Holiday Inn we continue our trip to Fresno which is located near the south entrance of Yosemite National Park. We booked the hotel on the Holiday Inn website since the prices on priceline.com where not so low for this area.

After driving through Yosemite National Park we sleep one night in Bishop. For Bishop we used Hotwire.com. On hotwire.com you select a hotel on the amenities it offers. After doing a little research we were sure the hotel was the Best Western Plus Bishop Holiday Spa Lodge and decided to take the offer. And we were right. We saved about 25% on the regular rates for this hotel.

After the night in Bishop we drive through Death Valley towards Las Vegas. In Las Vegas there are many hotels and Danielle got to pick one. It was difficult since many where possible but she decided to go for The Venetian. We booked it directly and we went for a room with view on the strip. This hotel is the largest hotel we have ever stayed in but that is Las Vegas. It has over 4.000 hotel rooms.

After 3 nights we continue to Williams. We had never heard of Williams till my former Dutch boss mentioned he was there during his trip. So we looked into this and this place was actually closer to the grand Canyon then the place we had in mind first which was Flagstaff. And it’s a typical Route 66 town which is nice to have a look at we think. After researching it seemed like we could get a good hotel for a good price on priceline.com for a hotel here and so we tried. The regular price for the hotel is a 118$ and after 2 tries we had the following message in our browser:

After Williams we drive to Scottsdale near Phoenix. Here we also won a stay on priceline and won a resort hotel for only 75$. It’s called The Scottsdale Plaza Resort and looks really beautiful on the pictures.

From Scottsdale we drive to Rancho Mirage near Palm Springs. There we’ve got the best hotel deal of the whole trip. We pay 90$ for a night which costs 567€ on booking.com. There are 2 pools and it’s located on the border of the dessert! Here we expect an additional cost from about 27$ as a resort fee but everything is included in this fee (internet, parking).

And from Rancho Mills we drive towards Los Angeles where we stay in the Holliday Buena Park. This hotel is being renovated right now and the rooms should be ready by our arrival. We stayed in hotel which was renovated before and we never heard any noise so we hope this hotels deals with the renovations in the same way. The hotel rate includes a breakfast, free parking and free wireless internet. We decided to stay in this hotel for the rest of our vacation which is 9 nights.

So all the hotels are booked! The next step would be picking out things we want to do and reserve times, buy tickets and so on.