Our next destination after many adventures in Peru was a little bit more typical – we decided to visit California and some other states in the Western part of USA. We had only 16 days, but still we managed to see really a lot in that time. To be honest I think it was one of the best trips we have ever made. It was like crossing out things from the bucket list of childhood dreams, but in the ultimate speed!

Below you can find list of the best destinations in Southwestern USA and itinerary that shows how to visit them in ultimate manner! If you need more details on when to go, how to move around or what are the prices – visit this page: How to travel around Southwestern USA.

Why you should go to Southwestern USA?

During our visit we went to Nevada, a little bit of Arizona and Utah and mainly California. I was a little bit shocked with variety of things you can do in this part of USA. Starting from nature and all the National Parks, to vibrant cities like San Francisco and movie studios in Los Angeles – everyone will find something for himself. I was especially surprised by nature – I knew about famous big cities, but I didn’t know that National Parks in US belong to the most beautiful places in the world.

On the other note – USA culture is so spread all over the world that when you are there you feel being at the place that is somehow familiar for you. At the same time usually it’s still very different than what you saw in the movies or photos, so there is plenty to discover and experience.

Top destinations in Southwestern USA

• Yosemite. It is probably the best place I have ever been to, probably even more breath-taking than Machu Picchu. You can see giant sequoias, encounter wildlife, stare for hours on the Yosemite valley and famous half dome from the Glacier point or hike to one of the domes around. Don’t forget to drive through Tioga road!

• Grand Canyon. You can see it in the videos. You can see in the pictures. But nothing will prepare you for seeing it in reality. It is just huge and you will be astonished by it anyway. Don’t forget that you have plenty of other spots in Arizona and Utah: Bryce Canyon, Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe bend. If you have time try to go also to Zion National Park and Monument Valley.

• San Francisco and Alcatraz. Very American, but also very European. Hearth of IT and place where many people from big tech companies live. This city has its flaws, but also its charm. Worth visiting at least once in lifetime. Don’t forget to book Alcatraz – this place is really interesting!

• Hollywood studios. If you want to see what is behind your favourite movies then you should go there. You should also visit Universal Studio theme park and get full immersed into the movies worlds. It is quite amazing how technology moved forward – when I was in the Harry Potter experience I was so sure I’m flying on Nimbus 2000 that I even was trying to avoid touching flying dragon with my feet!

• Drive Ford Mustang. I may not like driving cars, but driving mustang is absolutely amazing! It’s really fun! You don’t have to rent it for the whole trip, but try to rent it for at least one or two days and enjoy wide and long American highways.

 

Itinerary

Day 0: landing in Las Vegas
Day 1: getting camper in Las Vegas and going close to Grand Canyon
Day 2: early in the morning visiting Grand Canyon, later going to Antelope Canyon through Horseshoe bend. Sleeping close to Bryce Canyon
Day 3: visiting Bryce Canyon, going to Death Valley, sleeping next to it
Day 4: visiting Death Valley, going close to Yosemite, sleeping next to it
Day 5, 6: visiting Yosemite & going into direction of San Francisco
Day 7, 8: giving back camper, visiting San Francisco, Golden Bridge & Alcatraz
Day 9: taking car and going to Napa Valley, wine tasting and sleeping there
Day 10: going through Silicon Valley to Big Sur, sleeping in half way between San Francisco and Los Angeles
Day 11: Second part of the pacific highway, arriving to Los Angeles and sleeping there
Day 12,13,14: Los Angeles (NHL game, Universal studio, Warner Bros Studio, Hollywood sign, Downtown, Griffith Observatory), renting Mustang and going to Las Vegas
Day 15, 16: Las Vegas, casinos, Red Rock park, Cirque de Soleil show, Hoover Dam, helicopter flight

Day 1

Getting camper
Details on how to get camper I have described here: How to travel around Southwestern USA. Generally it’s really good way to travel around between national parks. Take into account that to get camper at Cruise America (which is the biggest camper company in region as we saw their cars everywhere) you have to call in the morning and set up at what hour camper should be ready. In our case we checked on their website that we want to get camper around 12:00, we got meeting for 14:00 when we arrived and at the end we got car only around 17:00.Camper has few elements that you have to maintain: fresh water, grey / black water, electricity and gas. Gas generally is enough for a week, but other elements you should maintain much more often. You will get big instruction how to handle whole camper, so don’t worry that you have no experience in this regard. Important is to remember to turn off fridge when you tank as otherwise you may explode whole station (fridge runs on gas).When it comes to fuelling then it’s quite easy – you have to first submit your card and then you can tank. If your card does not work at the dispenser, then you have to go to the station building. If you didn’t use all the fuel you paid for, you will get refund to your credit card.

Day 2

Grand Canyon (#6 on the 500 list of ultimate traveller)
It’s absolutely stunning place. Moment you see it you understand why it is so praised everywhere. You can visit Grand Canyon from two sides: north rim and south rim. The latter one is much more tourist friendly and easier to visit, so we decided to go there. Main point to start your visit is visitor centre and Grand Canyon Village. There are several ways to visit Grand Canyon:

• Walk on the rim around visitor centre or around Desert View Watchtower (highly recommend!).
• Take bikes / shuttle bus on the Hermit road going west from visitor centre (we didn’t manage this one).
• Take helicopter flight (we did on the last day, really worth it!)
• Raft on the Colorado river. Not a lot of people do it as you need few days for such rafting. We also didn’t do it.
• Make shorter or longer hike. Hiking to the bottom of the canyon and back to the rim is very hard in one day, so you need to get accommodation at the bottom in Phantom Ranch. Unfortunately, it’s really hard to get spot there (you need to make booking many months in advance), so we decided to just make shorter hike on the South Kaibab Trail. You can choose how far down you want to go depending on the time you have. Other popular trail is Bright Angel.

Generally every national park has its online guide in pdf, which you can print and take with you. They are really well prepared and useful. For Grand Canyon you can find one here: https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/newspaper.htm You don’t have to buy in advance ticket to enter national park, but if you want you can always do it online.

We visited Grand Canyon in the following order:

• Walk around rim from visitor centre to South Kaibab Trailhead

• Hike to Ow Ah Point and back on South Kaibab trail

• Going by car around Desert View Watchtower and make a short walk there

Horse shoe bend
It is quite amazing place, especially because it is located among nothingness of Arizona. You can arrive close by by car, but then you have to walk around 1 kilometre. In the heat of Arizona this 1 kilometre feels like much more, so remember to take with you water and hat!

Antelope Canyon
To get there you have to drive few hours from Grand Canyon. Tours start from city called Page and you have to take tour company to visit this place. There are several tour operators and we took Antelope Slot Canyon Tours, which was really good. We took only Upper Canyon visit and unfortunately I don’t have any clue about Lower Canyon. From photos it doesn’t seem like there is a big difference between both of them.

The best moment to visit Antelope Canyon is either morning or late afternoon when light is on the most of the path. Canyon itself was formed by the flash floods going through the stone. Water is also the reason why Canyon has such amazing shapes.

On the side note remember that for the tour you can take only your camera and water. No backpacks or other stuff as the road is quite bumpy.

Day 3

Bryce Canyon
This is the only national park we visited in Utah. We really wanted to go to Zion National Park as well, but we didn’t manage with time. Plus for Bryce you need just half day and for Zion you would need few days to really enjoy it.

Bryce looks a little bit like Cappadocia in Turkey with columns looking like made out of wet sand. View is really amazing and I can imagine it is equally good in the summer and in the winter.The best way to visit Bryce is to come in the morning and leave your car at the shuttle parking and then take shuttle bus to the park. You should take a lift until Bryce point, where you will need a little bit time to go around. You can catch bus every 15 minutes and that should be enough to see views there. Next point is inspiration point from where you can take a walk (around 20 minutes) to Sunset point. At the Sunset point there is an option to go down to see columns from closer distance. In my opinion is something really worth doing and in 40 minutes you are able to go down and back to the top. From Sunset point you can easily catch shuttle bus back to the shuttle parking. If you want to find more details on shuttle bus, you can do it here.

Beatty (Death Valley)
After visiting Bryce we were on the way to Death Valley. We decided to sleep in Beatty which turned out to be perfect place for “attacking” Death Valley in the morning. It’s easier to get there than to the Death Valley (there is very good highway all the way from Vegas to Beatty), you have all facilities like water, electricity, etc and you don’t have to worry to find empty space at the campsite.

Day 4

Rhyolite ghost town
On the way from Beatty to Death Valley you can visit one of the ghost towns. Booming in the era of gold mining, nowadays completely empty. To be honest it sounds better than itnlooks. As you can imagine only some buildings survive such a long time, so you won’t see the whole city, but just few buildings scattered over empty space. But as it’s on the way, you may still be interested in visiting this place.

Death Valley (#278 on the 500 list of ultimate traveller)
There is one very important rule about visiting Death Valley – go as early as possible in the morning. After 10am temperature starts to become unbearable. Additionally – it’s good to have some cold drinks with you and a lot of water. Don’t forget to fuel your car before going to the Death Valley as the station there is not the cheapest one. You will drive quite a lot, even tough the whole visit is somewhere between half a day to maximum one day (but I would rather aim toward half day).Death Valley has several places that are worth visiting, but it is more like driving a car from point to point, going out for few minutes and getting back to the car. The only exception is Badwater Basin, where you can make a short walk on the salt fields. It’s quite cool to do it, so I highly recommend to be there as one of the first places in the morning to avoid very strong sun.Details on Death Valley can be found in the very good guide of National Parks Service under link here. Remember to navigate based on the road sign and normal map as Google Maps are not working so good there. Generally few things that are nice to visit:

• Badwater basin – this salt field is one of the main attractions of Death Valley and must visit place. It’s also the lowest point in North America. And probably one of the hottest spots on earth.

• Devil’s Golf Course – official guide does not mention this place, but you can just go there on the way to Badwater basin. It’s just very specific looking field of small balls. Nice to see if you are driving next to it anyway, but nothing so amazing to go there on purpose.

• Artist drive – quite nice to go through when on the way back from Badwater basin. Cool to see different colours of rocks, but keep in mind that this route is hard to go through with camper (limitation is 25 feet long vehicles). But if you feel ok with driving there, it’s nice to see it.

• Zabriskie point – many different shapes of rocks and very interesting colours. It will take only 15-20 minutes to visit it, so nice to add to your itinerary.

• Dantes view – it’s the place that we really wanted to visit, but unfortunately it takes quite some time to get there and road is also very narrow, so we decided to skip it. But if you have time and car that can drive there – go! Photos from this place looks amazing, so I can only imagine how cool is to be there.

There are also other places in the Death Valley that are potentially worth visiting, but we decided to skip them because they didn’t look so interesting for us. You can find them in the official guide I linked above. Before going there, please check if they are not closed. Sometimes there are flash floods in Death Valley and they destroy some places. For example castle is not accessible until 2020.

Day 5 and 6

Yosemite (#6 on the 500 list of ultimate traveller)
I knew Yosemite is quite amazing place, but I didn’t expect how amazing it is! I really enjoyed every minute there and I really hope to come back there in the future! 2 days were enough to see main points, but you can easily enjoy even 2 weeks there.The day before we slept in the city that is around 1 hour from the entrance to the park. It was good decision as in the park there is no electricity or water pump. So remember to prepare your camper for the visit in the park! And as you can imagine – camping places are often sold out many weeks in advance, so remember to book it well upfront and hunt for spots of people who canceled their reservations (that’s how we got our spot). If you will miss your first night remember to call park and confirm you will arrive for the rest of your reservation. The best camping to sleep is Upper Pines Campground as it’s in the Yosemite Valley, close to potential hikes. You can reserve place here.As you will probably see in the park, there is quite many mentions about bears getting into cars in search of food. We had some problems with deciding what exactly we should do, but the rule is following – if you have car, you have to leave your food in the anti-bear boxes. If you have camper you can store food in the camper, but remember to hide it from the view and do not keep it open and smelly in the camper. You can cook normally, but always have food within your sight. Try not to cook too late and always clean afterwards. Don’t keep rest of the food outside. And just last thing – in Yosemite there are only black bears which are less dangerous than Grizzly bears. Main rule when you see bear is to scare him away – shout, wave your hands, keep in the group and never run away.You can find very good official guide on how to visit the park here. Generally, Yosemite is divided into kind of 4 parts:

• Southern with Mariposa Grove, Glacier Point and Sentinel Dome.
• Yosemite valley with many potential hikes.
• Tioga road with Tuolumne meadows on the north rim of the valley.
• Hetch Hetchy water reservoir on the very north of the park.

We visited three first places and skipped the last one as Hetch Hetchy can be visited only with shorter car than camper. It’s also the spot where most of the wilderness trails start, so if you are looking for some multi days adventure, it’s the place to go.

Mariposa Grove
We entered from the south, so we started from Mariposa Grove. It’s place with very famous Sequoias and it’s really worth visiting especially if you are not going to Grand Sequoias National Park. To get there you have to leave car at the parking lot and take shuttle bus. In the groove itself you can take few different routes. We took the one that allows you to see Giant Grizzly tree and I think this route has the best rate between what you can see and how much time it will take.

Glacier point
It’s one the highlights of the whole Yosemite. I could sit there for hours. It’s absolutely stunning. It’s a little bit hard to get there as driving route is very narrow, but you will get amazing view over the whole Yosemite valley. It’s one of the best places I have ever seen and the half-dome view is breath-taking. By the way someone explained me that half-dome was the inspiration for the North Face logo.

Sentinel dome
On the way to Glacier point there is Sentinel dome. It’s not really mentioned in the official guide, but it’s worth going there and make short hike. It doesn’t take so long (maximum 2 hours round way) and it’s a little bit harder than average Yosemite hike, but the view you will see is absolutely stunning. You can get there from Glacier point, but I think it’s better to drive with the car to parking and then make the hike. It’s faster and less strenuous way.

Yosemite valley
Remember that most of the traffic in Yosemite is one way – you have to make circle around valley if you want to come back somewhere. There are several things in Yosemite valley that you should consider visiting:

• Tunnel view – to be honest for me this place is a little bit overrated in comparison to other ones. But still – it’s a must see in Yosemite.
• Cathedral beach – it’s not so popular as Tunnel view, yet is one of the most beautiful places in Yosemite. It gives you view on the El Captain rock. You should try to come here in the late afternoon when the light is the best.

• Sentinel beach and Swinging bridge – really nice places, but if you don’t have time, you can skip them.

• Yosemite falls – it’s one of the highlights, but unfortunately there was absolutely no water there during our visit, so we skipped it. But if you have luck to see them, go for a short hike!
• Vernal fall – the only fall with water during our visit. I think it’s worth going them unless you were able to visit Yosemite falls. Except of seeing Vernal fall, it’s one of the best hikes if you don’t have too much time yet you want to walk a little bit in Yosemite valley. Round trip for us was below 3 hours so perfect start of the morning!
• El Captain meadow – very famous spot, but we decided to skip it after seeing El Captain in its glory from Cathedral beach.

• Mirror lake – very easy and short hike, but to go there there must be water inside. Unfortunately for us, in September lake was just really nice meadow.

Tioga road
Being on the northern part of the Yosemite valley rim, it offers completely different view than the southern rim. You don’t see so much Yosemite valley, but many other views. The best way to visit this part of the park is to ride the car and stop at the several view points:

• Tuolumne Grove – it’s nice place, but if you have visited Mariposa Grove, then you can easily skip this one as it is not as impressive. But still it’s a nice walk if you have time.
• Olmsted Point – one of the coolest views we have seen in Yosemite.

• Tenaya lake – you can just stop for few pictures next to it, but no more things to do there.

• Pothole Dome – at the entrance to the Tuolumne Meadows there is a small dome that is really worth stopping by.

San Francisco
After giving back camper we went to San Francisco. It’s really cool city, but also very expensive. You will see a lot of contrasts – rich houses with Ferraris, but also crazy amount of homeless people. I think I have never seen so much richness and poorness in the one city. Something that is completely not imaginable in Netherlands and most of Europe.There are several things to visit in San Francisco that can be reached by bike or Uber. As I wrote above – bike is a nice way to go around the coast, but don’t go to the centre of city on them – hills will make it more sporty than touristic challenge and instead of observing the city you will concentrate on surviving on the streets that are not so well prepared for cyclists. Things that are really worth visiting:

• Alcatraz (#228 on the 500 list of ultimate traveller) – after visiting this world famous ex-prison you will understand why it was almost impossible to escape from there (even tough there is one case of prisoners that may have managed to run away). It’s important to book tour upfront as places are easily sold out. Once you are on the island the best attraction is the main building. You can skip the rest as long as you will go there. You will get audio guide which is one of the best audio guides I have ever experienced. It is not like a guide, it’s more like a story of the whole prison. You feel like going through some story from the book.

• Twin Peaks – really nice view on the city, but you have to go there when there is no fog.

• Coit Tower – next to Twin Peaks, it’s the best views on the whole city.

• Lombard street – very famous street with serpentine for cars. To be honest I think it’s quite spectacular from drone, but being on the ground you don’t really see the serpentine so much.

• Lands End – nice view on the Golden Gate bridge and very beautiful coastline. Plus you can see the richest houses in San Francisco there.

• Painted Ladies (Seven sisters) – famous example of typical San Francisco houses. They look like something between mansion, suburb house and castle. This is really cool spot and photo shoot opportunity!

• Golden Gate bridge and seaside biking road (#101 on the 500 list of ultimate traveller)– the most iconic landmark of whole San Francisco. The best way to get there is to rent a bike in the city centre and ride all the way next to the sea. If you have time you should go to the other side as well! Small tip: it’s getting more foggy at the end of the day, so don’t wait until afternoon to visit it! If you will go on the other side, you may also go to Sausalito, with its famous houses on the water (not such an attraction for person living in Amsterdam 😉

• Restaurants – there are many good restaurants in San Francisco at relatively acceptable price, so it’s worth visiting them! My two recommendations are Firefly and El Techo
• Cable car ride – San Francisco is full of hills. For normal means of transportation it is almost impossible to get there, so that’s why San Francisco has its own cable car! You can get on one and what is the most fascinating – you don’t have to sit inside. You can decide to ride outside, standing on the verge of the floor on one of the sides! Must-do thing in San Francisco!

Day 9

Napa valley
It’s around 1,5 hour drive from San Francisco and it’s world-known from its wine. When you enter Napa city you see that is really rich region and that vineyards are everywhere. The coolest thing to do is of course to go for wine tasting and vineyard tour. Unfortunately, it’s quite hard to find a place not only with tasting, but also with tours. Lukasz managed to find one and we really enjoyed going there. It was Cakebread Cellars. Getting there from Napa city is easiest by taking Uber.

If you will have time left after wine tasting, go to the city centre of Napa. Nothing spectacular, yet quite nice small city with some good restaurants (and Ben & Jerry ice creams place!).To be completely honest, I really enjoyed this visit, but if you are short on time then this would be the first point to cut from your travel plan as it’s almost a day sacrificed for around 1,5 hour tour.

Day 10 and 11

Point Reyes National Seashore & Cypress Tree Tunnel
On the way back we tried to visit Point Reyes, but unfortunately fog was so strong that we decided to turn back at some point. However we managed to see Cypress Tree Tunnel, which is also quite cool (and has no tourists at all).

Silicon Valley
We tried to visit Silicon Valley, but unfortunately it makes sense only if you have some friend at Google, Apple or Facebook that can take you inside. As far as I know there are no guided tours or anything like this, so going there may be a little bit pointless.

Pacific highway
One of the most famous roads in whole United States. It goes next to the Pacific Ocean from the North USA till the very South. Nowadays there is parallel and faster freeway, but still you should go to the Pacific Highway (highway number 1) whenever it’s possible as this route is amazingly scenic! One of the main things to see on the way:

Los Angeles

This city is not as nice as San Francisco, but there are a lot of attractions worth visiting. It’s also very different – it doesn’t have so many skyscrapers and because of this it’s extremely wide. Metropolitan area of Los Angeles is almost twice as big as the whole Netherlands. The places that are most iconic for visiting:

• Universal studio theme park – I was in Disneyland few years ago, but Universal studio was much nicer! Also technology is much more advanced than few years ago! Nowadays attractions are amazingly immersive and when I was “flying” on Nimbus 2000, I was really afraid I will touch dragon flying below me. Absolutely stunning and must-see place! Don’t forget to go to Transformers attraction and hop on for the Studio Tour! It’s easy to miss them, but they are the highlights of the whole park.

• Griffith Observatory (# on the 500 list of ultimate traveller) – you won’t see stars from there anymore due to the light pollution, but you can see amazing view on Los Angeles instead. It’s worth to come there in the night, when you can see all the lights of the city. Inside the building there is also science exhibition, which was very interesting!

• Warner Bros studio tour – this is not theme park like Universal, but just normal movie studio. It’s quite nice if you are watching all the new movies and TV series, but a little bit boring if you are not really into this kind of things. They will tell you mostly – “this show was made here, this one here and this famous star was acting here”. But at the same time there are few highlights that are making it worth going there – you will see real Batmobile, you will be able to take a picture in “Central Perks” cafe and you will see how fake are cities that you see in the movies (and almost all of them are happening in the same place!).

• Hollywood walk of fame – famous street with stars of people who contributed to movie and radio industry. It’s must see place, but it’s enough to walk there for 20-30 minutes and find few most known stars. Everyone is trying to find Donal Trump star there as it was destroyed some time ago! (but it is fixed now)

• NHL game – you can also choose to go to NBA or NFL, but I think it’s obligatory to go to one of these sports when you are in US. For me it was really hard to follow all the rules, but I enjoyed skills of making show from just average pre-season game. Tickets are not so expensive and emotions are guaranteed!

• Space shuttle visit – you can see real space shuttle if you will find time to visit California Science Museum. You should book tickets upfront (they are for free), but to be honest, no one was really checking them. It’s nerdy yet interesting to see real space shuttle! Try to catch someone from employees to tell you a little bit more about the engines and used materials!

• Hollywood sign and Mulholland drive – it’s not spectacular, but if you are already in Los Angeles, then you should go there and take some photos. Neighberhoud is really nice, you can try to walk part of the route back to the city.

• Beverly Hills – there is nothing really to see there except of expensive cars and houses. I went for few kilometres run there and it was more than enough to see this place.

Las Vegas
The best way to get from Los Angeles to Las Vegas is by car. And it’s even better if you drive Ford Mustang 😉 Las Vegas is the world capital of entertainment and you can spend 2 months there enjoying not only casinos, but all the other attractions. To be completely honest, even tough casinos are very impressive, I have heard that only 6% of their income is coming from gambling. Rest of the revenue is everything around – hotels, food, shows, etc. So it’s really hard to experience all of this in just 2 days, but we gave it a try:

• Hoover Dam – very close to the Las Vegas, it’s huge and impressive. You don’t have to enter visitor centre, it’s enough to just walk on the top of it or to see it from nearby bridge

• Red Rock Canyon National Park – we only ride around in the car and took photos at certain spots, but I think it would be really nice to make some hikes there (but for sure in the morning when temperature is more bearable). It seems like really scenic place.

• Bellagio Poker Tournament – there are many different ways to enjoy casinos, but for me the nicest option was to take part in Poker tournament in Bellagio, the most famous poker place in the world. You just pay once the entry fee and you are not worry that you will loose too much money. They have tournaments every day at the exact same hour, so it’s easy to find time slot. Don’t worry if you will not manage on time – for around 1 more hour you can still join the game as there are re-buys.
• Casinos tour – you don’t have to play at casinos, but when you are in Vegas, you have to at least visit them. Fake Eiffel Tower or whole fake Venetia make impression. For me the biggest surprise was fake sky in Caesars Palace. Remember that once you enter the casino, it’s really hard to find the exit as they try to keep you inside as long as possible! You have also trains between some casinos. The best way to visit most interesting ones is to walk along the Stripe (main street of Las Vegas) and enter whenever you are intrigued.
• Circus de Soleil (“Love” the Beatles) – that is the part of Las Vegas I enjoyed the most! There are many shows of Circus de Soleil. It’s something between circus, theather and musical. It’s absolutely astonishing! I guess all of the shows are nice, but the most famous one is “Love” of the Beatles. It was one of my dreams to see this show and I was not disappointed at all with it!
• David Copperfield Magic Show – it sounds super nice, but just don’t go there. This guy should stop doing magic shows. He seems very demotivated, storyline is stupid and magic tricks are very weak. There are other magic shows in Las Vegas, which are probably much better option…
• Chopper flight over Grand Canyon – that was really amazing. For 250$ you can get 1,5 hours of chopper flight (which is attraction by itself!) and amazing view over whole Grand Canyon.