Introduce A Bit Of Variety to Your Summer Travel Plans

Would you like to know about a summer travel destination that offers a tremendous amount of diversity in the vacation opportunities and activities? Everybody has different goals for their summer travel. It may include hitting a bunch of theme parks like Knott’s Berry Farm, or relaxing in the mountains. For others it is visiting the local museums or hiking or deep sea sport fishing.

An obvious destination is the Disneyland Resort, which includes Downtown Disney and Disney’s California Adventure (by the way, the company is spending like a billion dollars on a major renovation of California Adventure over the next several years).

If you haven’t been to Anaheim in several years, you’ll be amazed at the changes. The addition of Disney’s California Adventure alone has changed the whole atmosphere of the Resort, and with the billion-dollar upgrade now underway this will only continue into the future. In fact, people watching at Disneyland can be a fascinating activity, with a rich mix of cultures all in one place.

There are not a lot of other places in the world where you’ll find such a complex melting pot of nationalities as in Southern California. There is a particularly strong presence from Pacific Rim countries, but Europe, Asia and Africa are likewise well represented (not so many folks from Antarctica).

You’ll find quite a number of ethnic communities scattered throughout Southern California, and worth a visit in your summer travel activities. These include Chinatown, Little Tokyo and Koreatown in Los Angeles County. Orange County is home to Little Saigon and Fourth Street in downtown Santa Ana.

You Can Find Some Of The Most Popular Animated Movie Stars On A Southern California Vacation

I have been to several of the world-class theme parks in Southern California lately. One thing I found is that you can enter into the world of many favorite animated cartoon characters if you enjoy that sort of thing.

Of course Disneyland is the first park that comes to mind, with Dumbo, Mickey, Goofy and the others. There are a few really good websites with helpful information about planning a Disneyland vacation. Nobody has done a better job of breathing life into  fictional characters than the Disney folks.

Knott’s Berry Farm is not far from Disneyland, and you can continue your movie star hunt by visiting Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts clan. Knott’s has done a nice job of absorbing Charlie Brown, his faithful pet and their friends into their culture.

Hit Universal Studios Hollywood and you can find Spiderman, Betty Boop, the Flintstones, Woody Woodpecker and a squadron of other beloved Universal characters that have been at the heart of many television shows and famous movies. Pick up some useful information and tips about Universal Studios from the SoCal Vacation Guru.

The final stop in the character caravan would be up I-5 an hour or so, to Six Flags Magic Mountain. It’s pretty common knowledge that Six Flags is particularly well known for its roller coasters. It does not take long to figure out that the Looney Tunes people are in charge of public relations.

Keep your eyes peeled for Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam and the rest, as they sign autographs at certain designated spots. To provide additional fun for small children, there is an area set aside for them, with a strong emphasis on the characters (not everybody wants to just hit the roller coasters). The characters are very charming and are pretty easy to find around the mountain.

I picked up some good vacation ideas recently!

Even though the economy is bad, we still need a little vacation now and then. I’ve been doing some research into saving money while still having a nice trip. I’ve been checking out some of the online travel websites. It seems that they all find very similar travel deals when searching for plane fares and hotels.

I can recommend a good website that will lead you to good deals on hotel reservations. Basically you want to use a travel website that has a reputation for providing a trouble-free vacation. Then I was thinking about where to go where it’s easy to find good prices on air travel or where I can drive my car. One obvious choice is Southern California. There are several airports and lots of activities for all seasons of the year.

A lot of vacation ideas are provided at the SoCal Vacation Guru site. It focuses mainly on Orange County and Los Angeles County, but will eventually expand to provide more information on San Diego County and the Inland Empire desert and mountain areas as well. But there’s great information about Disneyland, Universal Studios Hollywood, the beaches, shopping, dining and other activities. There are discussions about saving money and how to arrange for the best trip if you only have a limited amount of time.

If you are a roller coaster fan, the SoCal Vacation Guru compares the major southern california theme parks on their thrill rides (Six Flags Magic Mountain and Knott’s Berry Farm win in that category). In fact there are few places in the country where you can visit a half-dozen theme parks within a couple of hours drive from each other.

The SoCal theme parks include Disneyland (with Disney’s California Adventure), Knott’s, Six Flags Magic Mountain, Universal Studios Hollywood, SeaWorld and Legoland. Of course visiting all of those would not be particularly cheap, but you could fit a lot of vacation fun into a short period of time, so you might save on airfare and hotel reservations.

Winter and Spring are probably good times to schedule a vacation, as the crowds are often lighter then at many Southern California vacation destinations. Compared to other parts of the US, the winter and spring weather in California is very reasonable.

Also, it looks like the economy has a lot of hotels really wanting our business. We might get better deals now if fewer people are taking rooms and buying tickets to theme parks. Anyway, just some things to consider as we live with the recession.