Thought I may as well start this as it will likely be quite big anyway.

Summary -
Flew from Melbourne to Sydney
Flew Sydney to LA
Drove to San Francisco
Flew to New York City
Drove to Washington
Drove to Wilmington, North Carolina
Drove to Atlanta
Flying to Las Vegas
Driving to LA
Flying back directly to Melbourne

Have always wanted to head to America but for some reason never have. I wasnt coming back to the UK this year and the flying gets too much having done it 6-7 times now in only a few years. My girlfriend and I booked the main flights back in February but only finished booking all the internal accomodation, flights and car hire just before we left.

Currently I am in Atlanta so have Las Vegas left which is where my parents are who flew in from the UK yesterday to meet us for a few days.

Pictures have all been taken with a Nikon Coolpix S550 which is a 10MB camera but doesnt have a lot of other features such as shutter speed adjustment etc apart from different Scene modes. We bought it at Sydney airport on the way out as our old Canon IXUS500 was getting long in the tooth.

We have taken over 1200 pictures to date so I cut down the best ones from each place.

Pictures to follow, once uploaded:

 

Boeing 747 en route to LA from Sydney



View from our seat, I normally try and get Exit Row



Our Hotel view in Beverly Hills, LA



Maybach parked at the Beverly Wilshire, just off Rodeo Drive. Am told this is the hotel from Pretty Woman.



Trip to Disneyland



The drive to San Francisco along Highway 1/Pacific Highway



The destination



Cool shot of some Harleys, were quite a few on the road



A fun part of the drive, is an awesome drive all the way along actually



Unfortunately the day before we started the trip to San Francisco, lightning strikes caused 700 wild fires, with several being in Big Sur National Park. The Police closed off the Pacific Highway and sent the cars through Big Sur, an army training ground and onto a parallel highway. The road through Big Sur was more like a donkey track! After being ID'd, we went through and got in the middle of an H1 Hummer convoy. Total drive was about 6 hours.



I am a bit of a nerd so the Apple Store was high on the to do list in San Francisco



Fishermans Wharf, where a lot of the boats to Alcatraz, harbour cruises leave from



Coming back to the nerd in me, I have a big interest in the dot-com boom and wrote my dissertation on it at uni so hunting out some of the companies was also a big goal. Google:



Yahoo:



Oracle:



I also visited a few others but in the interest of saving photos, I won't post all up!

More to follow............

 

Me and a group of mates drove 10,000miles across Australia (in 6 weeks!) a few years ago.

Just booked out trip to USA, was going to drive Coast to Coast but werent able to

So doing 3 weeks on the East Coast this year and 3 weeks on the West coast next year

 

San Francisco area still:

Exo X spotted, tried to persue but the hire Mazda 6 wasnt up to the pace!



Lambo, Bentley and Jaguar dealership in San Francisco



Golden Gate Bridge, micro machines memories as a kid came flooding back!



Golden Gate Bridge from a vantage point, taken in Sepia mode. Walked across it each way



Evo X price at a Mitsubishi Dealership, we are getting ripped hard in Australia



One of our big interests is fine wines as her parents own a vineyard here in Australia so a trip out to Napa was taken



Culinery Institute of America



One of the top 5 vineyards in Napa, recommended by a couple of different publications



Domaine Chandon



Alcatraz Cruise and also under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco

More to follow............

 

Next part, flight over to New York City. This was a 5 hour flight directly into JFK Airport. Coming into land over New York



Taxis on the way to our hotel. We stayed at the Roosevelt near Madison Avenue which has been used in a few movies and was amazing. Tip - there is a secret roof top bar at about 45 floors up. This is a hidden Oasis and only accessible via a service lift but is superb and great views of NYC.



Empire State Building. Since the fall of the twin towers, many communications ariels have been positioned on top of this now that were once on Tower 1. This is now again the tallest structure in NYC. We caught a city sightseeing bus for $40 each which allowed us to get on and off in a stinking hot city!



Wall St



Trump Tower



Ground Zero. Very moving and the news crews were saying they are well behind schedule and way over budget for the new structure.



M&M World, Times Square. This is an immense area and so busy but fun all the same



Grand Central Station, so clean and didnt smell like some of the London Underground



Central Park, very scenic but chucked it down with rain before we could seek shelter. All got absolutely soaked! (met some friends here)



Another interest of ours is art and exhibitions. We went to the Guggenheim Museum in NYC but photos of the art werent permitted. This is the layout inside and is 7 floors high.



We did a trip to the "Top of the Rock", Rockefeller Centre. This was over the Empire State Building as the queues were much smaller and also meant we could get a picture of the Empire State Building (not possible if we went up it! ). This picture is looking up in the lift that as soon as the doors shut, music, lights and commentry come on. Novel idea.



Central Park from The Rock



Empire State Building



Nerdy Visit to Apple while the girls went shopping



Statue of Liberty boat cruise. This was well worth it and 2 hours in length



Manhatten view from the boat



Brooklyn Bridge from the boat



One of 5 new waterfalls that have been erected but a Dutch architect. They range from 90-120ft in height and recycle the water. Apparently there are filters to prevent ducks and canoeists (sp?) being sucked up!



Very nice Bentley parked outside the hotel



This conculdes NYC, next part to follow..............

 

We hired a car from Newark Airport and headed south to Washington. Before leaving Australia I bought the tomtom maps for North America for my tomtom at a cost of $80, these have been invaluable and highly recommended:



Capitol Building in Washington



Very friendly squirrels much like London



President Lincoln. This is enormous!



Another friendly squirrel



The White House



Heading south on I-95



Cool plate



Next stop, Wilmington, North Carolina. For those in the know, this is the home of a lot of the Dawson's Creek filming, One Tree Hill etc. Went and saw a few sites and stayed for July 4th which is a huge deal in America. This is the USS North Carolina from WWII outside our hotel window.



Bridge that lifts to allow taller vessels through



This went past our window and took us by surprise, was massive



Sepia sunset shot of a pier from our window



Train museum next to the hotel, didnt go in but took a few shots outside



Fireworks for July 4th. Mental note, do not park your car near a display. It doesnt do lacqour any good!



Next trip over to Atlanta. US highways are so good to drive on but heaps of cops out as it was the long weekend.



Today's visit to Coca-Cola World in Atlanta.



Inside one of the rooms



Tasting room, 64 Coca-Cola products from around the world. Try the Beverly from Italy if anyone comes here



Outside view of the Coca-Cola World



That is where we are up to currently. We have done all of the above in the past 2 weeks and have one week left.

For those of you on my facebook, there are heaps of pictures on there as I am sure you have seen.

This is my new toy that I only drove for 1 day before I left so am looking forward to getting back to Australia to drive!

Will update the Las Vegas ones in a few days

 

Good write up and pics

I wish the wife and i had done something like this before we had children

Steve.

 

nice pics looks like you're having a great trip away touring around nice car to come home to

 

Good write up! I would likewise like to do something similar. I have been to San Fran, LA and New York.

I would love to tour the vineyards of Nappa Valley etc in California.

JJ

 

Thanks all, will update the Las Vegas pics in a few days or later in the week.

Biggest tip I can offer for saving was Expedia. We really did this on a budget and booked our flights over to America on Frequent Flyer points and shopped around for the best hotel deals. I also used as many coupons etc on hire cars as possible.

I signed up to Expedia when I created my hotmail account about 8 or so years ago and put all their emails to junk as they were coming through regularly but as it happens, they have saved us so much money with rates etc and are well worth checking out. The other benefit is because they are booked through your own country, you don't get charged a conversion fee on bookings (e.g. If i use my Australian Credit Card to book a hotel in America, I get charged a $30 conversion fee. If I use Expedia for that same hotel, they do the booking and I just give them my details).

Will put up rough costs when we get back but honestly wasnt as much as it might look, especially given the rate of the $$ at the moment.

 

Another my kind of holiday thread, I'd love to do a driving holiday in America. Fab photos

 

...........would love too..............(wonder how much i could sell my kids for)..........

 

very intresting to read! amazing trip!

 

some cool piccs and a good write up, no shit we are being ripped on the import of cars, i fancey a nice mota now i'm settled over here and look at the uk price and here it make's me cringe, also the motoring law's suck big time. i now have a good deal on mod plates

 

i would love to do something like that

 

so take it you having the FQ400 inported back to Oz? are they not available over there anyhow? must be something to import it back?

 

great read, one day one day..

 

Thanks for the comments all

Just about to hit the hay in Vegas, up early and is gone midnight and was 110 degrees today! Thats hot even by my Australian standards!

r.e. the evo, it is a grey 8MR out of Japan with most of the goodies from an FQ400. The plates are the road plates but will be putting my own on there as they are NSW plates and I am in Victoria. Has a fair bit done to it but I can't take credit for the hard work, I bought it like that.

Will put Vegas pics up in the morning and also do a flying thread for those interested too.