Feelings from the States

It’s been now a couple of days since we left California and I thought to write some thoughts about our experiences. For the most part the trip went pretty smoothly and as planned without any bigger surprises or misfortunes. Our trip went as follows: 8 days NYC, 3 days LA, 2 days SD, 3 days LV, 3 days SF and 1 day Santa Barbara. Afterwards it can be said that New York and San Francisco were my favorites. NY was literally a city that never sleeps and full of life. I also really liked that it was very easy to travel there with the subway. No matters at what time you want to get somewhere, the subway runs. Although we had the possibility to visit very many places and attractions in the city, 8 days weren’t enough and I want to back there in the near future, most preferably during summer time to see the Central Park like it’s known. In California and especially in LA you can’t do really anything without a car. The distances are so big and there’s like no public transportation. Since there are about 20 million people living there and everybody is driving a car, it takes sometimes many hours to get from one place to another. Being used to queue free traffic, LA was not for us :) We had bad luck with the weather in San Diego as it rained for the most time we were there. Besides that, in our opinions it’s more a summer city and during winter time there’s not that much to do. The beaches are definitely wonderful in the summer and there are many golf courses around the city. So if you’re a surfer or a golfer, the city is perfect!

Las Vegas was a place from which we all had the opinion that it was nice to go there once but there’s no reason to again. The Canyons really saved our Vegas trip because they’re amazing. Next time I wanna upgrade the Canyons and book a helicopter flight :) they weren’t actually that expensive, for example in a 4 hour trip from Vegas did cost around $300/person.  After Vegas we drove through the desert to Reno and after the night continued to San Francisco. We all liked Frisco a lot. The atmosphere there was really cool and the city felt kind of cosy and homely. The only negative aspect was the fact that the public transport basically is closed after midnight so it’s better to book a hotel in the city center and not outside the center like we did.. If I’d move to USA some day, the smaller cities at the Pacific would be nice places to live in. Towns like Santa Barbara, Santa Monica and Laguna Beach all were pretty beautiful with their beaches and small mountains on the other side but they’re not the cheapest places to find a home :) 

Grand Canyon West

One of the most awaited things on the journey were the Grand Canyons and they certainly did not let us down. On Tuesday we started early in the morning towards the Canyons since it was still a 3-4 hours drive from Vegas and we wanted to stop at Hoover Dam too on the way. After a cold and rainy Monday, the weather was again perfect! The Hoover Dam was built in 1931-1935 and last year the Memorial Bridge over the Dam was opened to ease the traffic. Both the dam and the bridge were huge and provided a spectacular view as you can see below. 

We weren’t quite sure where to go at the Canyons in beforehand. We had looked for a couple of places to choose from. We drove to the West side of the Canyons since it was located most near to Vegas. We made the final choice pretty close to the Canyons as we saw a lot of other tourists (mostly Chinese :)) driving to the Grand Canyon West which is owned by the Hualapai Tribe. The admission fee of $45 was pretty high and it did include only a shuttle bus between the two locations of Eagle Point and Guano Point. But the amazing view made us shortly forgot the fee. The viewpoints were located just on the edge of the canyons without any fences and the 90 degree drop down was right on our footsteps :) At some points it look quite scary and not all visitors dared to walk on the edge.. There was also a so-called ‘skywalk’. It was a glass walkway over the canyon edge but since it did cost an extra $30 we didn’t go there as we could see everything without paying the fee. I think it’s not necessary to write more about the Canyons as the pictures speak for themselves.