As far as cities NYC is markedly better than Philly or Boston IMNSHO. But I wouldn't go East Coast in February.
As far as transportation, make sure that you are aware that traveling by train or public transport is not the same in the US as in Europe. Trains are available in certain corridors but are much slower, more infrequent and have less flexibility because our system is so much smaller. Our transport system for distance travel is orienteed towards using cars on the interstate system. As far as local travel, you can get along OK in a lot of cities with bus or in some cases subway/light rail or whatever. But our cities are more sprawling so it can take more time to get around.
Hostels are out there but are not nearly as common as in Europe. If you stick to large cities though you will be able to find them without trouble. Prices vary from US $10-$30, perhaps more in larger cities.
I would recommend the West Coast or Southwest for February. East coast will be far less pleasant with the weather and transportation may be more difficult as well. Maybe start in LA and head either East thru the SW or N along hte west coast. Temperatures tend to be mild along the coast, from the bay area northward you will see 10 Celcius days with some wind and maybe some sprinkles. Southern Cal has nice weather most of the year, maybe 15-25 Celsius. Obviously that would include Los Angeles which is not my favorite place personally but has plenty of things to do.
Most of the Southwest, which would be Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, southern Nevada, and California will have nice sunny warm weather. Although if you go up into the mountains you will still find snow in those states. On the other hand that also affords the chance to play in the mtns, snowshoe, ski, snowboard etc if that interests you.
The northern parts of Arizona has the San Franciso Peaks and some high plains, likewise for New Mexico with some decent mtns around Albequerque + Sante Fe. Grand Canyon too of course in Arizona.
Nevada probably doesnt have too much to offer although Las Vegas is a good place to visit if you want to see distilled American capitalism at its gaudiest.
Texas has Austin which is a nice city and Big Bend which is a nice mtn area but not too much to do there. Houston and Dallas suck absolutely.
California has a ton of variety. The coast areas are quite nice and the Sierra Nevada is great but obviously February is not the time to visit there. San Fran is a very nice city definitely worth visiting.
As far as Washington and Oregon, both have temperate coastal areas with population centers in the West towards the ocean. Seattle and Portland are both nice towns IMO but I am biased on Seattle of course. The coast in these areas is rather rugged. Mountains go down about a third of the way over from the coast and of course would also be snowbound at this time even with our very low snowpack year. Over to the east of there is steppe desert, high desert and even a little middle desert.
Apple stores are overly concentrated in California so that is your best bet there. Although they are in enough other places that you would have no trouble finding one.
I'm an hour from NYC and my job site is en route to Boston (along route 95). If you want to have some sushi at a nice Japanese restaruant, or if you prefer Indian food, give me an email and we can get together for lunch!
like hell i would let EbOy near my kids...i know what a little horn-ball he is....
san diego is nice for the weather, but don't sell it as close to mexico...lots of mexico is beautiful, but tijuana is probably the most depressing place in the western hemisphere....g
[quote] <-- DC.
Let me know if you're in the area.
<hr></blockquote>
so you two can visit, or so you can hide??
kidding, but i am doing a nice job of making der paranoid...
<strong>like hell i would let EbOy near my kids...i know what a little horn-ball he is....
san diego is nice for the weather, but do sell it as close to mexico...lots of mexico is beautiful, but tijuana is probably the most depressing place in the western hemisphere....g</strong><hr></blockquote>
Screw TJ. Go to Rosarito, Ensanada, Nuevo Puerto, et cetera.
<strong>kidding, but i am doing a nice job of making der paranoid...</strong><hr></blockquote>
you are indeed, though I'm already halfway there by nature
Oh well, all that visiting, we'll see, I guess. All of this has put me in serious doubt if I should not go to the south after all. Of course, winter here, especially middle of notime times like february are bound to depress. I'd love to go motorcycling across southern US. The question arising there: is the weather decent enough to go motorcycling extensively? I guess >12 degrees Celsius. Anybody know if rent is cheap, if possible at all? (in this, my age will work against me). Shit. I'll have to decide.
you are indeed, though I'm already halfway there by nature
Oh well, all that visiting, we'll see, I guess. All of this has put me in serious doubt if I should not go to the south after all. Of course, winter here, especially middle of notime times like february are bound to depress. I'd love to go motorcycling across southern US. The question arising there: is the weather decent enough to go motorcycling extensively? I guess >12 degrees Celsius. Anybody know if rent is cheap, if possible at all? (in this, my age will work against me). Shit. I'll have to decide.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You can motorcycle down historic route 66 from SoCal through at least New Mexico without running into too much bad weather.
Here is the definitive German youth traveler itinerary:
SanFrancisco
then fly up, or take the Tortoise, to Portland, get out to the mountains and to the Oregon desert
then take the Green Tortoise back to SF . . . that is, if you have Euro-hippy sentiments . . . I used to work in public in SF and the Germans travelling through always loved that in particular . .
maybe you can meet a real Native American on the Tortoise . . . Germans always love the Indians
for your info . . the tortoise is a bus where you get to lay down and they stop half way through the trip by a river and have bon-fire roasted fresh Bass . . . and sometimes Hot Springs
oh yeah . . . there are other Green Tortoise routes . . . you should check it out . . . they used to let 'smoking' on the busses . . . not cigs though . . . but that was many many years ago . . .
One thing to re-iterate: traveling in the US by public transportation sucks huge elephant, with sticky diarrhia, anus:
If you can rent a motorcylcle and know how to drive: then that is a great way to go (except for Urban environs): And I would say that this time of year the only area that would be good by motorcycle are the SOuth and South and Central California . . . even the Desert in Oregon is very cold in the winter
But, to emphesize, it is the most beautiful land anywhere . . . worth seeing someday
[quote]and if murbot came down south i could see us having some tequila and ending up in jail...<hr></blockquote>
Dude!! You bet your ass I'd look you up... would be a blast.
Hey, if any of you bastards go through my neck of the woods, I demand you look me up.
I already have a big list of members and their cities... my next travels through the US, I'm going to be having a few brews with guys from here if I can. I already have plans on harassing Leonis this summer in Vancouver (he doesn't know it yet though)
hell, that is the beer talking...you know that if any of us losers showed up at the bot household that he would be like, "what the **** are you doing here!!! get the hell out!!!" " I swear honey, i've never heard of Brad before...."
g
shit, mur making me look bad for not being social....g
You know g, the next time I go through there I will be calling you up to have a brew with you. I am older than your kids, and love my wife to death, so all should be cool. I will probably be down this summer. Till then.... <img src="graemlins/cancer.gif" border="0" alt="[cancer]" />
[quote]I'd love to go motorcycling across southern US. The question arising there: is the weather decent enough to go motorcycling extensively? I guess >12 degrees Celsius. <hr></blockquote>
I don't know anything about motorcycling. But as far as weather goes in some places I can tell you a bit about that. As long as you stay south of the Colorado Plateau you should be OK on weather. But unfortunately that cuts out some of the better parts of the Southwest. For Los Angeles, San Diego, and most of Southern California you would be fine, pretty much anywhere there where there are roads would be easily travelled. Likewise for Southern Nevada.
It gets a little trickier for Arizona and New Mexico and Texas. You would find good weather in Southern Arizona, should have no problems on I-10, I-19, I-8, etc. Basically anything South of I-40 would be good to go. Anything North of I-40 such as 180, 89, 160, 163, 191 would have a significant possibility of snow. Moreover, if you get up in that area there are very very few if any hostels or motels or much else in the way of civilization. However if you ever get a chance this trip or some other time you should definitely check out Northern Arizona and Southern Utah, some of the most beautiful deserts anywhere.
Anyway, BR mentioned taking Old 66 which follows the general direction of I-40. Very nice route and would be cool to do on a motorcycle. And this works fine for California. It might be trickier though in Arizona. As you get past Kingman Arizona you start heading up in elevation as you mount the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau. By the time you hit Flagstaff Arizona you are at maybe 6000 or 7000 feet in elevation. Snow is common in Flagstaff and along htat corridor and it would be fairly normal to have daytime highs of 10 Celsius but getting down to freezing at dark and falling to perhaps -10 Celsius at night with a possibility for snow. I mean there are tons of people traveling along there of course even in winter but I don't know how much of an issue cold and hte potential for snow is if you are on a motorcycle nor do I know whether or not the possible unpleasantness of it might defeat the purpose of enjoying your holiday. Arizona doesn't have much to offer in terms of cities, Flagstaff is OK. Phoenix is a large city but not too exciting, Tuscon is OK as well but not great. Arizona does have some great low Sonoran areas, also with some real nice weather like Organ Pipe, Saguaro, Chiricahua etc.
New Mexico is somewhat similar to Arizona. Southern New Mexico is warmer and low desert, up around I-40 in Northenr New Mexico you do get up around 5000 feet in elevation and you do have cooler temps. Gallup's weather is probably at highs of 10 Celsius or so with lows of -5 to -10 Celsius. Albuquerque and Santa Fe would be somewhat similar, highs maybe of 10-15 and lows below freezing.
If it were me I would try the motorcycle thing and fly to San Fran then down the coast to LA, San Diego, Joshua Tree NP, Las Vegas then down the over the damn to 93 to Phoenix, then Tuscon, Saguaro NP, Las Cruces, maybe hit up White Sands [you could even protest nukes or something, that would be very European ] up to Albequerque and then perhaps up to Sante Fe.
Huh, no NY in the plans anymore, der??? I did see some mac users there but none of them were from AI .. <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[oyvey]" /> I saw the road indications to Nanuet on the way to somewhere in Nyack but I didn't see EmAn ..
I'm phoneless now. Can't use my mobile in Europe anymore because i forgot my sim chips (where the numbers are) in NY .. I want to go back. Stupid visa policies = looks like it will be that classic 90 days, 2 days, 90 days etc life ...
Comments
As far as transportation, make sure that you are aware that traveling by train or public transport is not the same in the US as in Europe. Trains are available in certain corridors but are much slower, more infrequent and have less flexibility because our system is so much smaller. Our transport system for distance travel is orienteed towards using cars on the interstate system. As far as local travel, you can get along OK in a lot of cities with bus or in some cases subway/light rail or whatever. But our cities are more sprawling so it can take more time to get around.
Hostels are out there but are not nearly as common as in Europe. If you stick to large cities though you will be able to find them without trouble. Prices vary from US $10-$30, perhaps more in larger cities.
I would recommend the West Coast or Southwest for February. East coast will be far less pleasant with the weather and transportation may be more difficult as well. Maybe start in LA and head either East thru the SW or N along hte west coast. Temperatures tend to be mild along the coast, from the bay area northward you will see 10 Celcius days with some wind and maybe some sprinkles. Southern Cal has nice weather most of the year, maybe 15-25 Celsius. Obviously that would include Los Angeles which is not my favorite place personally but has plenty of things to do.
Most of the Southwest, which would be Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, southern Nevada, and California will have nice sunny warm weather. Although if you go up into the mountains you will still find snow in those states. On the other hand that also affords the chance to play in the mtns, snowshoe, ski, snowboard etc if that interests you.
The northern parts of Arizona has the San Franciso Peaks and some high plains, likewise for New Mexico with some decent mtns around Albequerque + Sante Fe. Grand Canyon too of course in Arizona.
Nevada probably doesnt have too much to offer although Las Vegas is a good place to visit if you want to see distilled American capitalism at its gaudiest.
Texas has Austin which is a nice city and Big Bend which is a nice mtn area but not too much to do there. Houston and Dallas suck absolutely.
California has a ton of variety. The coast areas are quite nice and the Sierra Nevada is great but obviously February is not the time to visit there. San Fran is a very nice city definitely worth visiting.
As far as Washington and Oregon, both have temperate coastal areas with population centers in the West towards the ocean. Seattle and Portland are both nice towns IMO but I am biased on Seattle of course. The coast in these areas is rather rugged. Mountains go down about a third of the way over from the coast and of course would also be snowbound at this time even with our very low snowpack year. Over to the east of there is steppe desert, high desert and even a little middle desert.
Apple stores are overly concentrated in California so that is your best bet there. Although they are in enough other places that you would have no trouble finding one.
<strong>but g... I always wanted to come over to your house sometime... *sniff*
I know, I did too
Let me know if you're in the area.
san diego is nice for the weather, but don't sell it as close to mexico...lots of mexico is beautiful, but tijuana is probably the most depressing place in the western hemisphere....g
[quote] <-- DC.
Let me know if you're in the area.
<hr></blockquote>
so you two can visit, or so you can hide??
kidding, but i am doing a nice job of making der paranoid...
[ 02-03-2003: Message edited by: thegelding ]</p>
<strong>like hell i would let EbOy near my kids...i know what a little horn-ball he is....
san diego is nice for the weather, but do sell it as close to mexico...lots of mexico is beautiful, but tijuana is probably the most depressing place in the western hemisphere....g</strong><hr></blockquote>
Screw TJ. Go to Rosarito, Ensanada, Nuevo Puerto, et cetera.
<strong>kidding, but i am doing a nice job of making der paranoid...</strong><hr></blockquote>
you are indeed, though I'm already halfway there by nature
Oh well, all that visiting, we'll see, I guess. All of this has put me in serious doubt if I should not go to the south after all. Of course, winter here, especially middle of notime times like february are bound to depress. I'd love to go motorcycling across southern US. The question arising there: is the weather decent enough to go motorcycling extensively? I guess >12 degrees Celsius. Anybody know if rent is cheap, if possible at all? (in this, my age will work against me). Shit. I'll have to decide.
<strong>
you are indeed, though I'm already halfway there by nature
Oh well, all that visiting, we'll see, I guess. All of this has put me in serious doubt if I should not go to the south after all. Of course, winter here, especially middle of notime times like february are bound to depress. I'd love to go motorcycling across southern US. The question arising there: is the weather decent enough to go motorcycling extensively? I guess >12 degrees Celsius. Anybody know if rent is cheap, if possible at all? (in this, my age will work against me). Shit. I'll have to decide.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You can motorcycle down historic route 66 from SoCal through at least New Mexico without running into too much bad weather.
SanFrancisco
then fly up, or take the Tortoise, to Portland, get out to the mountains and to the Oregon desert
then take the Green Tortoise back to SF . . . that is, if you have Euro-hippy sentiments . . . I used to work in public in SF and the Germans travelling through always loved that in particular . .
maybe you can meet a real Native American on the Tortoise . . . Germans always love the Indians
for your info . . the tortoise is a bus where you get to lay down and they stop half way through the trip by a river and have bon-fire roasted fresh Bass . . . and sometimes Hot Springs
oh yeah . . . there are other Green Tortoise routes . . . you should check it out . . . they used to let 'smoking' on the busses . . . not cigs though . . . but that was many many years ago . . .
If you can rent a motorcylcle and know how to drive: then that is a great way to go (except for Urban environs): And I would say that this time of year the only area that would be good by motorcycle are the SOuth and South and Central California . . . even the Desert in Oregon is very cold in the winter
But, to emphesize, it is the most beautiful land anywhere . . . worth seeing someday
[ 02-03-2003: Message edited by: pfflam ]</p>
Dude!! You bet your ass I'd look you up... would be a blast.
Hey, if any of you bastards go through my neck of the woods, I demand you look me up.
I already have a big list of members and their cities... my next travels through the US, I'm going to be having a few brews with guys from here if I can. I already have plans on harassing Leonis this summer in Vancouver (he doesn't know it yet though)
g
shit, mur making me look bad for not being social....g
ps..mur you are welcome down at any time....
[ 02-03-2003: Message edited by: thegelding ]</p>
always have time for a homie
[ 02-03-2003: Message edited by: thegelding ]</p>
And no, it's not the 5 in my belly making me say this.
yep, i count five beers there on murbot's desk.....so far, but the night is young...
and dude, get a better pizza...pizza for one is like the geek pizza of the whole pizza family.....g
I don't know anything about motorcycling. But as far as weather goes in some places I can tell you a bit about that. As long as you stay south of the Colorado Plateau you should be OK on weather. But unfortunately that cuts out some of the better parts of the Southwest. For Los Angeles, San Diego, and most of Southern California you would be fine, pretty much anywhere there where there are roads would be easily travelled. Likewise for Southern Nevada.
It gets a little trickier for Arizona and New Mexico and Texas. You would find good weather in Southern Arizona, should have no problems on I-10, I-19, I-8, etc. Basically anything South of I-40 would be good to go. Anything North of I-40 such as 180, 89, 160, 163, 191 would have a significant possibility of snow. Moreover, if you get up in that area there are very very few if any hostels or motels or much else in the way of civilization. However if you ever get a chance this trip or some other time you should definitely check out Northern Arizona and Southern Utah, some of the most beautiful deserts anywhere.
Anyway, BR mentioned taking Old 66 which follows the general direction of I-40. Very nice route and would be cool to do on a motorcycle. And this works fine for California. It might be trickier though in Arizona. As you get past Kingman Arizona you start heading up in elevation as you mount the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau. By the time you hit Flagstaff Arizona you are at maybe 6000 or 7000 feet in elevation. Snow is common in Flagstaff and along htat corridor and it would be fairly normal to have daytime highs of 10 Celsius but getting down to freezing at dark and falling to perhaps -10 Celsius at night with a possibility for snow. I mean there are tons of people traveling along there of course even in winter but I don't know how much of an issue cold and hte potential for snow is if you are on a motorcycle nor do I know whether or not the possible unpleasantness of it might defeat the purpose of enjoying your holiday. Arizona doesn't have much to offer in terms of cities, Flagstaff is OK. Phoenix is a large city but not too exciting, Tuscon is OK as well but not great. Arizona does have some great low Sonoran areas, also with some real nice weather like Organ Pipe, Saguaro, Chiricahua etc.
New Mexico is somewhat similar to Arizona. Southern New Mexico is warmer and low desert, up around I-40 in Northenr New Mexico you do get up around 5000 feet in elevation and you do have cooler temps. Gallup's weather is probably at highs of 10 Celsius or so with lows of -5 to -10 Celsius. Albuquerque and Santa Fe would be somewhat similar, highs maybe of 10-15 and lows below freezing.
If it were me I would try the motorcycle thing and fly to San Fran then down the coast to LA, San Diego, Joshua Tree NP, Las Vegas then down the over the damn to 93 to Phoenix, then Tuscon, Saguaro NP, Las Cruces, maybe hit up White Sands [you could even protest nukes or something, that would be very European
I'm phoneless now. Can't use my mobile in Europe anymore because i forgot my sim chips (where the numbers are) in NY .. I want to go back. Stupid visa policies = looks like it will be that classic 90 days, 2 days, 90 days etc life ...