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We want to go to the Grand Canyon in August/September. As we have not previously visited San Francisco and enjoy train travel, our tentative thoughts are to fly to San Francisco and travel by train to Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Do you have any recommendations/suggestions for sightseeing/stopovers
en route? Is there a direct rail link between San Francisco and Los Angeles? R Bartle
Arriving in San Francisco will give you the option of travelling by train to Los Angeles and then on to Las Vegas, which you could use as a base to visit the Grand Canyon.
You can indeed catch a train from San Francisco to LA. The Coast Starlight operated by Amtrak (www.amtrak.com) runs from Oakland, just outside San Francisco, and takes in some stunning coastal and inland scenery along the way.
Attractive destinations en route include the seaside towns of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara, a central-coast highlight sitting snugly between the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Ynez Mountains. The journey takes 12 hours and coach/roomette/room fares are $69/$180/$321.
Trains don't run from LA to Las Vegas but Amtrak operates a bus service ($48 one way, just under six hours).
Once in Las Vegas you'll find numerous Grand Canyon bus tours. A one-day tour of the canyon would mean that you'd be spending 11 hours on a bus with only a short time at the canyon itself.
A much better option is to take an overnight trip from Las Vegas. This will leave you plenty of time to have an evening walk on the South Rim and watch the sun setting over the canyon. Grand Canyon Tours (www.grandcanyontours.com) offers an overnight stay at the lodge inside the park at the South Rim.
Overnight bus packages from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon cost from $291 to $310 per person.
One of the best ways of getting from A to Z in the US is by car.
Route 1, also known as the Pacific Coast Highway, is one of the world's great drives and it would seem a shame to miss a spin along this awe-inspiring stretch of coast to Big Sur.
If you feel that the train trip doesn't take in as much of the landscape as you'd hoped, exploring this stunning coastal route by car might be a better option.
Basic car rental starts from around $68 per day with an agency such as Hertz (www.hertz.com), or you could do the trip in style and rent a convertible.
American road trip
We are a couple in our 60s who are quite well-travelled and experienced in driving in the US and Canada. We wish to drive from LA to Vancouver in June over four or five days and are considering using Highway 101 rather than the more inland highway. Is this reasonable? What problems will there be in leaving the car in Vancouver rather than the US? Is it better to have a pre-booked car before leaving home or is it possible to get a better deal on arrival in LA? John Stewart
Highway 101 is one of the longest routes in the US, snaking its way north through California into Oregon and Washington, onwards to the Canadian border.
It's particularly scenic as it passes through Oregon, with 80 per cent of the road running along the coast (beware of rockfalls). Interstate 5 is the quicker, less scenic multi-lane highway running inland, while Route 1 is the famous coastal highway that laps the Californian coastline from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Route 1 often runs parallel with Highway 101, and converges with it at Leggett, north of Sacramento.
A mix of Highway 101 and Route 1 would be ideal but you're going to be pushed to do the trip in four or five days. At more than 2000km you'd need to cover at least 400km per day.
Perhaps another idea would be to choose which coastline you'd like to linger along - southern California, northern California or Oregon - and amend the route accordingly.
Popular attractions along the route include Carmel, Monterey and Big Sur in southern California; Point Reyes near San Francisco; Eureka and the Redwood National Park in northern California; and Oregon's Cannon Beach.
Another idea could be to shorten your kilometres by flying to San Francisco and driving north from there.
A one-way car rental is more expensive than a return rental, and it will need to be arranged in advance before you travel to the US. International one-way rentals are certainly not standard but they're possible through bigger companies with branches in both the US and Canada. Contact Dollar (www.dolalr.com) or Alamo (www.alamo.com) for quotes on a one-way international rental.
For information and recommendations from travellers who've driven this route, have a look at the travel forums at Thorn Tree (www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree) and Road Trip America (www.roadtripamerica.com). Specific sites include 101 Mile by Mile (www.101milebymile.com) for the Oregon leg and US-101 (www.us-101.com) for California.
