Tours-USA
Our first encounter with Tours-USA was for the arrangement of part of our world tour in 2020 for the Californian coast. Just six days before arrival was due in Los Angeles the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted our travel plans and we could not enter the USA due to the imposed lock-down. Under the valid payment conditions we would have forfeited all the prepaid hotel costs as no insurance would have covered this. Tours-USA then offered to convert the prepayment to a credit for use up to end of 2021.
We made new plans for a trip then directly from Germany to Seattle and return from Los Angeles for September 2021. We decided to make use of a self-drive proposal based on the Best of the West tour. We added an additional leg at the beginning from Seattle to San Francisco with stops in Portland, Cresent City and Fort Bragg. At the end we replaced Palm Springs and Phoenix with an additional night in Grand Canyon and a night in Lake Havasu City on the way back to Los Angeles. The modification was no problem with Tours-USA and all hotels were organized and booked by them. However the US Government did not lift the entry ban for European citizens until November 2021 and again we had to change our timing. This time we moved the trip to May/June 2022 and Tours-USA revised all the reservations without any extra cost.
At last in May 2022 we we permitted to come to the USA and we can comment on the tour itself:
The daily timing for driving was always within our capability. Every hotel was expecting us and were in line with the description.
With the provided digital road map we had a great deal of daily opportunities for each sector of travel. In total we travelled 2,894 miles from Seattle to Los Angeles, consumed 110 gallons of gas for US$ 652,21 and experienced a temperature range between 9° and 44° Celsius. We had two rainy days, obviously in the North, but not in Seattle but in Oregon and Northern California. Our highlights were certainly the Redwoods, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon area.
We enjoyed both San Francisco and Los Angeles and each of these cities has its own specifics and merits. As a visitor you should see both if you can. Concerning Las Vegas we can only say fantastic hotels with thousands of excellent restaurants and many alternatives for a good show. However gambling is not really ours and it is quite frightening to see the extent of this in Las Vegas. We have seen it now and that is good and for us no need to return.
Driving in the USA is actually far less intimidating as one may expect. American drivers are generally more cautious and most people appear to accept the American traffic regulations and observe speed limits. We certainly at most times used our cruise control with posted speed limits and never had any issues with the law. Out in the sticks it is of course necessary to keep awake when travelling for miles and miles in very lonely areas on long straights!
We are grateful to Tours-USA for the selection and reservations of the hotels as they have the right experience and good rates which are passed on to their guests and strongly recommend them to travellers to the USA. Their program covers the whole of the USA and offers in addition to self-drive tours a great number of coach tours as well. We have plans for a new trip in September 2023 to the East Coast and have already requested a new quotation for this itinerary.