4 weeks from LA to Vancouver

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asfbvl

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Sep 21, 2013
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just started to plan a 4 weeks RV trip from LA to Vancouver, with 2 adults and two young children (3.5 and 1), from late june to mid july.

the plan is to visit main highlights and parks (considering the fact of two young children) on the way north from LA to Vancouver.

is this time table seems logical if we want to visit both grand canyon and British Columbia, and return the RV in seattle? should we skip one of them?

should we hire the most compact RV (c-19) or should we choose the standard  one?

thanks,

Assaf
 
    Although we have only visited BC once, I can say categorically it is huge and will take you quite a while to even make a dent in that gorgeous province.  As for the Grand Canyon, it too is unbelievably beautiful but there is a lot of hiking to get to see much of it, and depending on the ages of the children, it may best be seen when they are well into their double digits, so that they can fully participate.
    That said, it is doable, but you would be bypassing Oregon and Washington, each of which are worth seeing in their own accord.  Check the trip logs, go onto the State and BC Tourist sites and get a better feel for what you might want to accomplish. 
    A constant thread of advice you will find on this forum is to slow down, see all that you can.  Otherwise, all you will be doing is driving, and that is not a whole lot of fun for any of the travelers.

  Ed
 
thanks Ed,

so maybe I should do a round trip of California-Nevada-Utah ?
 
    That really depends on what you want to see or do.  I was thinking more along the lines of say, CA, OR, WA then on to Vancouver, the Gold Coast, Vancouver Island, and the ferry back to Seattle. 

Ed
 
asfbvl said:
thanks Ed,

so maybe I should do a round trip of California-Nevada-Utah ?
Click to expand...

No, not with 2 and 4-1/2 year old kids in the deserts in June-July (think 100?+ temps with 10-15% humidity).  Instead consider heading north on US 101 taking in places like Lake Cachuma near Santa Y?ez,  Pismo Beach, Morro Bay, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, Sonoma, the Redwood parks, and Eureka.  Continue on into Oregon, visit Ashland, the Oregon parks, esp. Honeyman State Park.

With little kids along, you want the climate to be temperate and the ground soft and relatively safe.  Beaches, coastal forests, nice lakes, and such.  Spend time at your stops.  Save the spectacular stuff for them when they are getting to their double digit ages.
 
We once spent an entire month just going from San Francisco north to Prince Rupert BC where we got the ferry to Alaska.  We left on May 1st and got to Prince Rupert on June 1st.  In fact, we followed the lilacs north!  There's a ton of things to see.  As the others mentioned, California, Oregon and Washington have enough to keep you busy for quite a while.  Then when you get to B.C. there used to be a lot of wood-related tours of factories (lumber, oriented strand board, etc.), not to mention the largest aluminum smelter in North America.  Vancouver is beautiful.  The island of Victoria is neat with the wonderful Butchart Gardens.  Not sure how much of all these things you would want to do with the children because they're still pretty young, but even the beaches are lovely and kids usually love to play in sand.  I wouldn't even think of Utah and the Grand Canyon on this trip.  Utah alone is worth a whole month all by itself!

ArdraF
 
Like Carl said, take a trip up the coast. Lots of beaches, lighthouses, and scenery. The Oregon coast is spectacular. There are sand dunes in both states that kids love to play on.


Wendy
 
should I skip the main parks like Yosemite? and go only by the coast?
 
Not ne
asfbvl said:
should I skip the main parks like Yosemite? and go only by the coast?
Click to expand...

Not necessarily.  Sequoia has some nice campgrounds -- I like Cedar Grove.  Yosemite is world class but there is a reservation issue.  Lake Tahoe is great.  However, I would reserve them for later -- kids around 8 or 9 years.  Right now they would be digressions. You will travel thru almost of the redwood parks -- national and state.  You could visit Mt Rainer east of Seattle -- I like the area around Paradise Lodge. 

Since you are Southern Californians, may I recommend a future tour of US395 from Lone Pine thru Mammoth Lakes to Bridgeport, CA and maybe even Carson City, NV.  June thru September is nice.  You have the 10,000 foot scarp of the Eastern Main Crest of the Sierra, alpine lakes, great fishing, forests to camp in.  A great ghost town in Bodie, and a salt lake in Mono Lakes, plus all the volcanoes and hot springs a person could want.
 
thank you so much for the help.
I think I have my mind set for the main route: LA to Portland or Seattle through costal in 3-4 weeks

assaf
 
You'll find tons to do on that route. You can speed up or slow down depending on what you find that interests you. A couple of years ago, we spent 6 weeks wandering up the California coast. We headed north from Bolsa Chica State Beach (southern California, near Huntington Beach), stopping along the way wherever we felt like it. We visited several of the old California Missions, took a tour of Hearst Castle, drove our VW on the beach at Pismo (not advised for an RV), drove through the redwoods northeast of Santa Cruz, and more. We'd still be going if we hadn't needed to turn southeast and head for home. Another year, we headed south from Beverly Beach in Oregon, stopped at every lighthouse we could find, sucked up scenery, visited Redwoods State and National Parks, and headed inland towards Redding, again because we had to head toward home.


Enjoy your trip.
Wendy
 
Don't miss the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.  It's the last old time boardwalk amusement park on the west coast.  RV parking is available in their parking lot, lots of kid friendly rides and fun.
 
asfbvl said:
great! will 3 weeks from LA to Seattle be a rush? or it should be ok?
Click to expand...

The trip is possible driving straight thru, I-5 all the way, gripping the wheel 9 to 5, peering down the interstate at 65 mph in 2 days 2 hours according to MS Streets and Trips.  21 days ought to offer a goodly bit of dawdling time.

Enjoy. ;D
 
ok, after thinking again I decided to go for a 4 weeks LA to Seattle with 25/27 ft RV.

this is what I think should be a great route:

https://maps.google.co.il/maps/ms?vps=22&ie=UTF8&hl=iw&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=210707433075956620490.0004e76dadc14f116bf23

any comments??

i would like some.

 
We spent 4 weeks getting from PHX to Seattle this summer and had a wonderful time. 7 days got us to Lake Tahoe, another week to Brooking Oregon,  10 days from there to Portland, and the last few up to Seattle.


Back in the days of work we have done that trip in 3 days in a motorhome.. ::)
 
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