As I am planning to do a trip report for our forthcoming trip to New Mexico and Las Vegas, I thought I would offer fellow HT forum readers some background information into our holiday and what we have planned. Enjoy.

Participants:-
Me (Ju) 35, chief holiday booker, planner and travel guru (I wish).
Wife (Kel) 30, normally happy to go with the flow.

We wouldn't normally holiday in the USA in August but due to my Wife's job with a certain high street banking establishment and with it being a case of last in, last choice of holiday dates, we were left with August for our two week holiday this year. There are positives and negatives for travelling at this time of year, but the one thing that really struck home when planning was that flight prices were horrendous and were only going to get worse. I will mention the benefits later.

Since we decided (!) to holiday in August the planned two week holiday has changed a number of times. Initially we were going to take in some National Parks and had pencilled in an exciting itinerary to fly into Minneapolis and head from there to South Dakota to visit Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Badlands NP etc and then onto Yellowstone NP and the Grand Tetons, flying back to Minneapolis to get our USA city fix and then home. Problem with August is that aside from huge flight prices, the accommodation is horrendous in the park areas as well, and to be honest paying $200+ for a Days Inn next door to Yellowstone NP is something I would prefer not to do. We decided August isn't the right time for this type of itinerary, expert forum users on TA and the like agreed. Go Spring or Autumn, just avoid Summer. Definitely another time.

New England was the next plan and is definitely a trip I want to do soon. We found the same problems in New England as we did with the National Parks trip though with sky high accommodation prices really putting it out of the question at this time of year (although many people still do visit now, as they do with Yellowstone NP etc). Once again budget hotels were quoting close to $200 per night in some areas and that just wasn't affordable. When you have taken advantage of rates as low as $30 for similar level hotels at other times of the year, it really does make you sit back and take notice. We will attempt to plan this trip again in the near future as it looks amazing (we have already been to Boston twice).

So then we started to think where else could we visit. We had seen a lot of the USA in 7 weeks back in 2006, and really wanted to try somewhere new. With this in mind, I came up with New Mexico, a state we had completely missed out on that trip in 2006 but a state we desperately wanted to tick off the list and see. I came up with an itinerary that initially included 5 nights in San Diego, 5 nights split between Albuquerque and Santa Fe in New Mexico and a real "test the water" 5 nights in Las Vegas. We had never been to San Diego in 3 visits to California, never been to New Mexico but had been to Vegas 4 times since 2002. I really didn't expect my Wife to go with Vegas but it was worth a go. To my surprise she agreed, so I started to plan the trip along these lines. Once again we found accommodation costs to be high, but only in San Diego. The Marriott where we really wanted to stay was $250 a night for those 5 nights and I tried to find something cheaper in a similar area but again was quoted $200 for a Comfort Inn. We decided to knock San Diego on the head this trip. It is a city that we both want to visit at some point in our life, but at the same time it's not on the must do list.

So to our current trip and the one we have booked. 8 nights in New Mexico, split evenly between Albuquerque and Santa Fe and 6 nights (more of that to come) in Las Vegas. We depart Saturday 9th August.

On the quiet (from my Wife) I managed to get flights on Continental from Heathrow to Albuquerque via Houston and back from Las Vegas, again via Houston for £625pp. Not cheap by any means, but glad I booked them when I did as the next day they shot up by £150 each and have not come down since, quite the opposite in fact. It will be only the second time we have flown Continental, the first time back in 2000 when we got a short internal from Orlando to New York. Very much looking forward to someone other than Virgin or BA. No disrespect to those airlines but standards have dropped over time, and it will be interesting to see if the US carriers are any better now.

Plan in Albuquerque is to spend 4 days and nights seeing as much as we can. There is a lovely Old Town plaza which has a number of museums closeby, Downtown is being regenerated and is now well worth a visit for shopping and entertainment and also has Route 66 snaking its way through the city. There are also a number of day trips planned to the likes of Acoma Pueblo (Sky City), Petroglyph & Coronado State Monuments, the Hot Air Balloon Museum and of course some shopping in the malls. We also plan to take in an Albuquerque Isotopes baseball game (it's only minor league but should still be a good night). We will be staying in the Howard Johnson Express Inn in North Albuquerque, cost $60 per night+tax.

In Santa Fe, again we will visit the plaza and a couple of museums, but this area is ripe for exploration and we intend heading out and about to Taos, the Rio Grande Bridge, the Enchanted Circle loop, Bandelier National Monument, and taking in as many scenic highways as we can fit in. We will be staying in the Holiday Inn Santa Fe, booked via Hotwire for a cost of $39 per night+tax.

Of course a trip to New Mexico wouldn't be complete without sampling some authentic New Mexican food, which for us both is likely to be a major highlight.

From Santa Fe we will drive back to Albuquerque, drop the hire car off and catch our flight to Las Vegas (Nevada, not New Mexico) on Southwest Airlines. Love Southwest, awesome airline with such friendly staff.

In Vegas we are booked into the MGM Grand again. We stayed here last September for my Wife's 30th birthday and it soon became our favourite Vegas hotel. It is huge and it always scared me as a visitor, but staying there you soon get your bearings and it is very manageable. As some of you will know I have deliberated on cheaper deals at other hotels, and even more expensive deals at high end places (the Venetian deal was very hard to pass up) but our soft spot for the MGM has meant us sticking with the booking. I have cancelled and rebooked twice now, getting the Sun-Thurs rate down from $89 to $69. As some of you will know again, I have managed to book another night onto our stay in Vegas as a special treat for my Wife to see Sheryl Crow (support from James Blunt, oh well) at Planet Hollywood. I spoke to Casino Marketing and got the very good rate of $109 for the Friday night which I was very happy with.
As for Vegas itself, we have three shows booked (four if you include Sheryl Crow). Mystere, Zumanity and Dirk Arthur's Magic Show in the afternoon at the Tropicana. Both CDS shows were $50pp, and Dirk Arthur was just $13.80pp. Aside from that we will do our usual explore of all the hotels on the strip, eat lots of lovely food and utilise some time to chill out by the MGM pool. Oh and we might have a little gamble here and there!!!!! It will be our 5th visit in 6 years but the excitement of returning to Vegas never falters.

I hope you've enjoyed this rather long Pre Trip report. I will do a proper trip report on my return.