"Terry Pinnell" wrote in message
...

Don Kirkman wrote:

On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 16:41:09 +0000, Terry Pinnell
wrote:

I'm flying from London to visit my son in Carlsbad, San Diego on February
17th. He will no doubt take me to many of the San Diego tourist spots
during the next 4 days. But then for a week I plan to hire a car and see
as much as I can on my own. So any recommendations for possible practical
itineraries would be much appreciated please. I don't mind driving a
hundred or two miles a day.

Ideally I'd like to cover new ground, so here's a list of places I've
visited on a previous USA trip in 1997:

San Francisco
LA
Yosemite
Death Valley
Las Vegas
Bryce Canyon
Zion
Grand Canyon (but if possible would love to see it again!)
Sedona

Depending on your interests, fairly near San Diego/Carlsbad, assuming
return to your base same or next day:
(For an extended itinerary I can suggest others, if I know your
interests and desires.)

Wild Animal Park (part of the great San Diego Zoo, but located quite a
ways out of town), wild animals in sort of normal habitat.

Anza-B0rrego Desert State Park not too far from the Salton Sea, a lake
formed when the Colorado River broke through its banks about 100 years
ago. Interesting (?) desert scenery.

Julian - an old mining town in the mountains easterly from San Diego,
a sort of combination resort and ghost town. :-) Could be cold,
maybe snowy, in February.

Commercial flower fields beside the highway near Carlsbad, north of
San Diego. Lego Land in the same general area.

I'm assuming your son will get you to the nearer places like the
mission, the Old Town site of original San Diego, La Jolla, Torrey
Pines.

These should all be searchable in your favorite search engine.

Lawrence, Don: Excellent, thanks both. I'll do more research over next
week or two based on those suggestions, including some advance 'touring'
in Google Earth.

So many possibilities! First reaction is that I'd like to cover the longer
distances, e.g. to Moab. But maybe I won't sustain that ambition and
decide instead to go 'local' and spend the time gained in solo hiking. Or
compromise, and take in say the Wild Animal Park on the first or last day.
Not Legoland though, as I'm 100% sure that will be part of my San Diego
sight-seeing, if only because my son has a season pass!

Note that whatever itinerary I follow, I deliberately won't return to San
Diego until end of the week. I then have another 4 days with my son and
two young grandsons before my flight back from LA 5th March.

How much can I expect to pay for a car for a week's hire?

******
Terry -

Keep an eye out on Travelzoo for rental specials -
http://www.travelzoo.com/car-rental/north-america/

Also check out the rental car agency websites - Herz, National, Alamo, Avis,
and the like.