Anyone Doing The Yosemite And The Canyonlands?!

Hi - i have booked on this trip as well. Good to hear from fellow travellers.

Flying into San Francisco a few days eaarly to see some of the city. Trip sounds superb visiting most of the major parks. Really looking forward to the Grand Canyon part.

Looks like the trip is full from the website.

Neil

Hi Neil,

Thanks for getting in touch. The trip looks fantastic, we really cannot wait. As you say it takes in so many different locations.

As you are getting to San Fran early I can really recommend you take in the Alcatraz tour, you will definately need to book this before you fly out, it gets booked up months before. Try to go at dusk as it gives it even more atmosphere. The tour is excellent!!! There is also a great restaurant called Scomas which is down at the piers, it does amazing sea food.

Looking forward to meeting you.

Jo x

Only 6 months to go!! Thanks for the info on San Francisco - much appreciated. Flying out on the Tuesday so should get a chance to see a bit of the city first and should provide a contrast to the actual trip.

See you are doing the Lycian Way before then - I did an Exodus multi activity near there one year and it was a lovely part of the world so sure you will enjoy it. Been on a few Exodus trips and never been disappointed yet - how long are you going for on that trip - one week or two?

Neil

Hi Neil,

We are only off to Turkey for a week, we thought it would be a good warm up trip before we head to the USA. Glad you have positive things to say about Exodus, we have never been on any type of organised activity trip before so its is great to get good reviews and advice. If all goes well with the trips we have booked this year we are considering doing a cycling trip next year, maybe to Vietnam or India. We have completely had a change of life style over the last 3 years, it wasn't long ago I was happy to sit on a beech for 2 weeks, really couldn't think of doing that now.

You will have a great time in San Fran, you definately have enough time to see a lot of the city. A few years ago we went to Vegas for 3 nights, then flew to Los Angeles, picked up a car and slowly made our way up highway 1 where we ended up in San Fran for 5 nights. We had such a wonderful time and were keen to go back. When we saw this trip was available we thought it was ideal for us.

Another great thing to do is Bike The Bridge! You hire bikes from the pier area, cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge then carry on, (which is a great down hill ride), to a lovely place called Salsillito. You can lock up the bikes and have a good look round, it is really pretty and chilled out, great bars and restaurants. You can then catch the ferry back to San Fran which is very civilised.

At Christmas we saw a documentary on tv called The Bridge, it was all about the Golden Gate Bridge. I don't know if you can google it, but I definately recommend you try to see it before you go. It will change the way you see the bridge. I know we will be seeing it very differently when we get to walk over it on day one of our trip. I don't want to tell you too much in case you get to see the film. If you don't I will tell you about it when I meet you. We couldn't stop telling friends about it once we had seen it.

We also were bought a great book for Christmas which covers the areas we will be visiting on our trip. It is by Insight Guides and called US National Parks West. Has lots of information and great photos of the areas we visit, certainly gets you excited. What I was not happy to read about was the likelyhood of coming across rattle snakes, scorpions, mountain lions and bears. Most of these are not mentioned in the Exodus trip notes!!

Anyway, I have rambled on enough. Hope you have a great weekend.

Jo x

Thanks very much for all the advice - will sort some of that out shortly.

Enjoy yourself in Turkey and meeting you will come around in no time!!

N