After traveling to a bunch of asian countries these past years, it was about time to head back to the “big” country.
Being a passionate fan of the USA while growing up, I rapidly started discovering several states after my second trip to California in 2006. I visited California 7 times, almost once every year, and did most of the popular states like Washington, Oregon, Florida, Louisiana, New York, Illinois, … .
So far I’ve visited 12 states, and drove through a handful more.
After my first steps in Asia in 2013, my travel interests changed, and I noticed that my wallet definitely felt more confortable with asian countries. I could do way more trips within a year while wandering across Asia. Culturewise I was more keen towards eastern countries, than America.
Nevertheless, since my last holidays in the US, San Francisco again in 2016, I was looking forward to head over to my favorite state and discover some new spots.
Las Vegas, Nevada.
“What happens in Vegas, stays in a Vegas”, such a popular and often-repeated quote, that will make you think that Vegas is all about its second name “Sincity”. This should be my 6th time in Vegas. When I was younger I enjoyed the binge drinking nights and the dull nights at the clubs. However after been through that, I do really love Vegas for its hot climate, the luxurious hotels, the lovely outdoor pools and its casino madness.
We decided to stay at the Mirage Casino, as we got a pretty fair deal on our room. Mirage’s location is actually a bonus, as you’re only steps away from the beautiful Bellagio fountain show, and a big fashion Mall is just next door.
You don’t go to Las Vegas to get culturally educated. However there’s nothing wrong with enjoying some Mojitos at the beautiful pool, have fun at gambling throughout the night, and enjoy some of the pretty restaurants across the different casinos. It’s a fancy world which can be enjoyable for a couple of days.
I noticed throughout the years that Vegas had become a lot more expensive than it was 10 years ago. The parking lot that used to be free at several Casinos, switched from free to 25$ a day. A (small-size) Mojito at the pool was 15$ without tax nor tip. The usual dish at an average restaurant was between 22 and 29$.
Life’s fun in Vegas but it ain’t cheap.
Vanessa discovered a pretty hip spot, right on the city’s edge. It was the art installation “Seven Magic Mountains”. A bunch of colorful rocks stacked on each other. Plenties of rocks, plenties of colors! In my opinion it’s a must-see if you get bored of the glamour in Vegas. There’s a free parking, no entrance fee (which has become pretty rare nowadays), and you get the arty desert feel. It was also one of the few places where I felt at ease to fly up my drone.
Grand Canyon, Arizona.
Despite numerous trips to Vegas I’d never made it to the Grand-Canyon. My girlfriend and I, we decided to make it a one-day trip towards Arizona.
First of all I didn’t know that the Grand Canyon was located in Arizona. We had to cross the borders of Nevada, to Utah and back south to Arizona to reach the worldfamous landmark. As we left in the early morning before 8 am to headed east to the Antelope Canyon. The lower Antelope Canyon got more an more popular because of its beautiful shots on social media. As for myself I was really excited to take a couple of amazing photos with the light-beam shining through the different layers of the Antelope.
After we arrived in the smoking hot desert, we got disappointed that the only way to make it to the Antelope Canoyn was with a guided tour. On the side of the road we discovered 3 different companies that would offer a tour to the country. The cheapest was about 60-80$ per person. We were told that the Canyon belonged to the Navajo population and therefor it wasn’t possible to make it to the bottom of the Canyon without a tour. Bummer!
Two companies were completely sold out. One offered us a tour around 3:30pm. If we would have waited 2 more hours in the sun, we wouldn’t have made it in time to the Grand-Canyon. So basically we were driving almost 4:30 hours to the Antelope, for being told that we couldn’t get in.
I’d recommend to the readers of this post, inform yourself prior your departure of your trip and try to book a tour in advance. It’s sad that actually every cool spot in the US turns into a tourist attraction, where visitors have to pay for a guided tour.
Close to the Antelope, 20 minutes driving, there’s another cool spot called “the Horseshoe Bend”. Again we had to pay a 10$ entrance fee for our car. We parked on the big public parking and walked for about 20 minutes to a vista point where we could take some shots of the impressive scenery that forms the horseshoe river.
While asking for informations about the Grand Canyon we were told that there would be two main points that we could approach by car. The southern part of the Canyon or the North Rim. As we had to make it back to Vegas in the evening we opted for the North Rim which was about 2 hours driving away from the Antelope.
As the Grand-Canyon belongs to the National Park you had to pay a 35$ entrance fee to access it by car. We spent about 3 hours in the park and followed a route that lead us to different view points. They were all worth it.
Getting back to Vegas was a 5-hour-driving-adventure as there are no lights on the road at night, and you gotta drive carefully because of the wildlife in the surrounding woods and mountains.
In total we spent more than 13 hours on the road which got pretty unpleasant at the end of the journey. I’d recommend to stay at least a night in the national park or at least closer to the popular landmarks. It will make your trip and life more enjoyable.
Palms Springs.
The words “Palm Springs” always come up when people talk about southern california. The famous music festival Coachella, takes place every year just right next to Palm Springs. However if people would have asked me, what to do in the city, I wouldn’t have known an answer to their question.
Even now after having spent a night in Palm Springs, I can’t tell you what I would recommend doing while visiting. We had booked a night at the wonderful “Infusion Beach Club” Motel. Hands down it’s the coolest motel I ever stayed at. The view from the 2nd floor, over the pool towards the mountains was wonderful. The pool area, was surrounded by a bar that offered enjoyable cocktails, pool-beds, hip string lights and wooden bag toss games. The accomodation offered free bike-rentals to make it easier to the city-center. In the lobby you could use the photomat-booth and send them for free to your e-mail. They also servered free coffee and tea all day.
Obviously free parking right in the front of your room was a plus on a roadtrip, that’s why we opted for motel nights, as it made the trip cheaper and easier.
On our only single night in Palm Springs on a saturday evening, we went downtown through the main road. It was pretty calm. Actually it was hard to find a bar packed with people. We were happy that we still managed to find a mexican restaurant after 10pm and went to a open-air bar, where we were served hot red wine, that we emptied in a flower-pot and went back home.
The morning was definitely more pleasant as you could enjoy the beautiful surrounding mountains. We rented a vintage-bike from the hotel, and went downtown for breakfast. Following that, we crossed a couple of neighbourdhoods, where we glanced at the impressive architecture. Actually there wasn’t much lef to do in Palm Springs, but we enjoyed the laid back vibe of the city. We wouldn’t have minded to spend a second night at the “Infusion Beach Club”. Definitely a motel I would recommend!
Salvation Mountain
After having checked-out at the hip motel, we headed towards “Salvation Mountain”. It took us a little bit more than an hour to reach the spot that intrigued me the most on this trip. Having been a fan for ages of the movie “Into the wild”, directed by Sean Penn, I always wanted to visit this special place, where a scene from the movie took place.
It’s just a bunch of colorful hills, decorated with letters, hearts and crosses, on which the actor Emile Hirsch has a very deep conversation with the artist Leonard Knight, who created those “mountains”. Leonard Knight plays himself in the movie.
Traveling the world together with Vanessa, for over a year now, I was happy that we both made it as a couple to Salvation Mountain. For me it was a very special place, that was on my bucket list ever since I’ve watched “Into the wild” for the first time. A specaial place with my special person.
Just as a reminder, it doesn’t look like a mountain at all. We expected to drive uphill towards a forest, the woods or a higher altitude. It’s located right on the desert low-lands. It definitely had a different feel while seeing it in the movie. Depsite that, it still remained a magical place.
San Diego
Almost 9 years ago I visited San Diego for a day, but it hardly ever felt like having visited the city. I couldn’t give any recommendations back then, and now after haveing spent 2 nights in San Diego, it still feels like I haven’t disocvered the real face of San Diego yet.
We booked a hotel room very nearby the italian neighbourhood, which pretty much was a good choice, as the blocks get very lively just before dinner. Catering wise I prefered San Diego’s italian neighbourhoood over NY’s “little italy”. The building and surroundings seem more authentic in NY, however the food looks definitely better in San Diego. We spent our first night at an italien restaurant where started the night with a few Apperol Spritz cocktails, and a pretty fair pasta dish. We enjoyed the italo-american accents all over the place.
Sadly the hood got quiter aroudn midnight. Two blocks down was a bar called “Waterfront” on both nights we spent in San Diego the place got pretty packed.
Obviously we spent some time around the San Diego bay walk, visited plenties of shops, moved east towards the Gaslamp District, where there was a market on a sunday. Walking around took too much time, so we ended up visiting the mexican neighbourhood downtown called “Barrio Logan” on our last morning just before heading up north towards Los Angeles.
For us the interesting part was the park under a bridge, where every single wall was painted with mexican propaganda graffitis, murals and texts. Not too far away, we also had a stop at the more touristic mexican block “Old San Diego”. Despite its very touristic flair, we still managed to enjoy the spanish vibes that took over the place. We almost felt like visiting Mexico.
Having spent 2 days in San Diego, I still can’t tell you what’s gotta be a must-see in the city.
Not the coolest city in California, but we enjoyed SD.
Los Angeles.
Los Angeles, the city of angels, you either love it or hate it. I’m one of those who never gets bored in LA. This must have been my 6th or 7th stay. And guess what? You’ll always find an indiscovered spot in LA.
The only thing that bothered me the most, must have been the everlasting traffic jams. Where ever you’re planning to go, it’s always gonna last about an hour, or slightly less.
Our inital plan was to find a cheap accomodation close to a beach, as we would have loved to ride a couple of waves, or at least trying to. We opted for Manhattan Beach, as the local motels were the only ones, that were available for a reasonable price. However it turned out that Manhattan Beach wasn’t the best location for surfing.
We visited the Venice area on our first two days. The legendary Venice Beach, that got even creepier over the years. I can’t tell you what about Venice Beach seems so appealing that people keep visiting the sketchy beach walk. The boardwalk is mixture of loud phsycadellic music, walking crack addicts, street artists, tourists, skaters & surfers, mixed up with the scent of marihuana.
The sweetest discovery around Venice was the handmade Icecream-Bar “Salt & Straw” which all over the bigger cities in the US. We had our first taste in Venice, and it unusual flavors with its smooth textures just blew our minds and tongues. Initially we noticed the shop in San Diego, where people were standing in a huge waiting line to get the cup of ice-cream. Watching the whole act, we weren’t intrigued to follow the line. At the end of our trip we were sad that we couldn’t visit another “Salt & Straw” and try the olive or goat-cheese icecream.
“Salt & Straw” was located in a pretty hip neighbourhood on Abbot Kinney Blvd. The place is packed with fashion stores, gift stores (like Urban Outfitters), many veggie- & vegan restaurants.
While being in LA, we discovered two instagramable attractions. The swing-over-the-city in Elysian Park and the Urban-Lights installation in front of the “Los Angeles County Museum of Art”.
On our last night in LA we went to a concert of an icelandic artist Junius Meyvant. While my girlfriend was visiting Iceland in November 2018, she wanted to surprise me with a vinyl record of Meyvant, being convinced it would be a cool present as it seemed to be a fantastic album that nobody ever heard of. It turned out, that I already owned the record, as I heard about Meyvant while visiting Iceland Airwaves in 2016. Watching a show of an icelandic arist in sunny California had become a must. After the show, we went for dinner, and landed in front the actor Danny Trejo’s mexican restaurant “Trejo’s Cantina”. The food was OK. Later on IG we found that that Trejo is visting his own restaurant weekly, as many people were posting photos with him on the social platform.
Santa Barbara & Carmel by the Sea.
On this wonderful roadtrip across California, we stopped by in two smaller cosier cities: Santa Barbara & Carmel by the Sea. There’s really not much to write about those cities, especially if you’re only planning to stay for a night.
The only thing we did, was having lunch/dinner and enjoying the sandy beaches with its sunset.
Both cities were the ideal spot to spend a couple of stressfree days with your family. Enjoy the sunny weather, a glass of wine, walk along the beach, go for a run in the early morning. And just enjoy the rest of the day with shopping or relaxing.
Santa Barbara is all about the several avenue filled with palmtrees, Carmel by the sea is about the charming beach.
Sequoia National Park & Yosemite National Park
While being in Santa Barbara we started thinking about changing our plan of visiting the National Park. Initally we decided to spend 3 nights in the several national parks, and then drive up to San Francisco within a morning.
On the other hand we enjoyed the quietness in Santa Barbara. Should we extend our stay for one more night in SB, or not?
In the end we decided to leave SB on the next morning, drive towards both national parks Sequoia & Yosemite, and stay one last night in Santa Cruz, before we started heading to our last destination San Francisco.
It took us about 4 hours to reach Sequoia. We were surprised how big it was, as there were many places that we could have visited, however they all were widely spread appart. It took us almost an hour to reach the famous fallen sequoia tree, where all the visitors stopped by and had a snapshot with their car, driving under the tree-tunnel. Sequoia wasn’t as packed with tourists as Yosemite, however the whole national park felt like a massive natural theme park. Indian families taking photos with every single family member getting up on the fallen tree, cars passing by every 20 seconds. It was almost impossible to take any descent photos, we had to wait half an hour to get a people-free photo.
All the lodged were sold out inside the park. We had to drive out towards Fresno to find a cheap motel to spend the night. “Cheap” was around 100$ a night.
The next day we headed back north-east towards legendary Yosemite, which turned out to be a huge disappointment. After having passed the entrance-booth, where we payed 35$ for our car-fee, we drove towards the Glacier point. After reaching the glacier, we were told by a ranger, that we would have to get in line with our car, and wait for about an hour, as the whole parking lot was full. We decided to move on and drive towards the Yosemite valley, to visit El Capitan & Mirror Lake.
Because of a massive traffic jam, it took us 90 minutes to reach the main parking area in the center of Yosemite National Park. 90 minutes stop&go. Only one lane could be used by cars, as the second lane was reserved for the bus-shuttle. Finding a free parking spot was a huge pain as well.
Getting out of the car, we walked towards a waterfall, which didn’t seem that impressive. We didn’t know that we had to rely on the free shuttle to get around, and we didn’t know where to jump on the shuttle.
Long story cut short, we took the shuttle, went to the wonderful piece of rock called “El Capitan”. We took a bunch of pictures, shot some video clips, enjoyed the views. While walking around, we spotted two wild deers just passing by. As soon as we decided to jump back on the bus, to get to the next point, we sadly found out, that the shuttle was only driving on the “purple route” til 5:30 pm. We had to walk back by foot to the main parking where our left our car behind. It took us almost 30-40 minutes.
We decided to use our car, to reach Mirror Lake, as the sun was already slowly setting down. The traffic didn’t seem too busy at first sight. We jumped behind the wheel, started the engine, and headed up north, after taking the first left, we just bumped into a huge traffic jam again. 40 more minutes to make it to the next parking lot. Bummer!
The time, til we made it to the parking, it had already started to get darker. We just made it in time, to get some underexposed photos of the lake, which didn’t seem that impressive at all. Maybe because of the high temperatures, the sea was partially dried out.
As for myself I was very annoyed, that Yosemite Park has ended up as major tourist attraction. The very first time I visited Yosemite 13 years ago in September, there weren’t any traffic jams. It was a real pleasure, driving around and witnessing the beautiful nature sceneries of the national park.
Thirteen years later it was just a big pain in the ass, fighting against the never ending traffic jam.
It took us another 30 minutes to make it out of Yosemite. We stopped at a lodge to get dinner around 9pm. We ordered the worst pizza we could get, and had to wait another 30 minutes. It was the longest day or our california trip.
San Francisco.
Hey folks Frank’s back home! My 7th time in San Francisco, and still enjoying it, more or less. We had 3 nights left to discover this gem of a city. We were exhausted for being on the road for more than 2 weeks, tired of driving endless hours, and tired due to the lack of sleep.
On our first day, the weather wasn’t on our side. It took me many years to find out, that the daily massive fog over SF, has a name. The name is Karl. Karl showed up on our first day, and prevented us to witness the beauty of the red lady (Golden Gate Bridge). The Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill was also less appealing due to the cloudy & foggy weather.
We showed up at the Madrone Art Bar at night, as we read about “Motown Monday”. The bar was pretty busy for a beginning into a new week. Plenties of soul and 70s songs got played, the crowds were dancing, and we had a pretty fun night in SF!
On our last night, we closed the chapter of our journey, as we met up with my friend Nicole, that I got to know 4 years ago in the city. We visited her art & fashion shop “Fleet Wood” located on 839 Larkin St. She took us out to a nearby Tiki-Bar called “ The Zombie Village”. Eventhough it sounds more like an episode of the walking dead, the bar fulfilled our expectations: the cocktails were delicious and made tipsy pretty fast. Despite rushing to frisco, and not being able to see the whole beauty of the golden gate bridge, we had a good time in SF. And as usual… this wasn’t my last stay in the foggy city!