Los Angeles booked - 5 nights

The first part of the planning is easy... We fly to Los Angeles so this is where we will start (and also finish)

Not knowing too much about this city I went to my trusted friend "Google" - always a good place to start...

From a quick search of the city and the surrounding area I could see that there is plenty of things to do and see.

5 nights is now booked and this is a non-refundable payment - so we have started.

Placement for the first 5 nights - Glendon Apartments

Hotel No. 1 (5 nights)

Placement: Westwood, Los Angeles

Westwood via Wikipedia

The location, reviews and size of this 2 bedroom apartment was the key to booking this place... with 5 nights in LA we needed a place where we can all relax and also with the separate bedrooms and living area we have a place in the evening to be when the kids are sleeping (a hotel room or motel room was just not an option)

Location being between Venice beach and Hollywood was for us a great location.
We have a daughter - Isabella, who has a rare form of Epilepsi that makes her very tired and walking long distances or having full packed days is not really an option... short trips (or a little longer when we have the pushchair for her) is the way to go...


## Once all hotels are booked and I know where we will be and when, I will then look at the placements and review what to do and where to go ##

## you are more than welcome to comment to this post - ideas and suggestions to LA and the areas around ##

A quick update to the standard questions that I am being asked:

We have already hired a car for the whole of the trip. We were looking at the idea of renting an RV but then went against this due to the issues with driving around the cites, having to sleep in the RV and the toilet situation.

We landed a 7 person car / van as we thought that this would be enough space for the 4 of us and the bags.

I did look at the drop top mustang that they had but then we would have to have 2 of them for us and the bags...

What we want from this trip...

Nature  - Yes

Wildlife - Yes

Beaches - Yes

Historical sites - Yes

Breath taking views - Yes

A mix of the must see tourist spots - Yes

Hiking - No

Walking more that 10 minutes at a time - No

Shopping - No (This will be hard to tell Maj-Britt... so we will say Yes but max. 2 hours for the trip)

Spending all our money in Las Vegas - No

We are looking at staying in hotels 3 - 4* (2* if they are clean)

No camping

## Everyone (if I know you or not) is more than welcome to comment and leave their views on the planning... All input is very much needed :) ##

So... where was I...

California...

Well we all know that some small details change when planning a holiday :)

The dates are set and the flights booked... We fly from Copenhagen to Los Angeles in October and we have 20 days

We thought about the dates that are available for us and I suggested California as the weather would be better at this time of the year and I guess that it will be more kid friendly than what we had planned...

I have a rough plan of the places to visit and in what order but I would really love to hear some suggestions from people who have been... I need to plan (and I love to plan)

Where are the must see off the map places to visit...?

This blog is for 2 reasons:

1) I learnt with the passing of my father in 2015 that we as people... as families... as friends need to enjoy this very short time that we have together.

2) I wanted to document this time in our lives so that my children can read in the years to come what we did right here right now and maybe share it with their children.

I am in no way a "blogger" and have never tried this before so it will be fun to see where it takes us and who it picks up on the way.


A little about us...

We are a family of 4 living in a small town in Denmark.
(Denmark that is a country for itself and in no way part of our friends to the north "Norway" or "Sweden")
Many living outside of Europe find the geography of Scandinavia a little confusing so I hope we have this straight now...

I myself come from a town in the south west of England and found my way to Denmark though my girlfriend at the time and now wife - Maj-Britt.

We have 2 kids - Isabella and Emil that are at times a handful like all kids of their ages.

Since having kids we have found it difficult to plan and most important book the holidays that we wanted to take... There is so much to think about with small kids... We have until now taken short vacations back to England to see family and also short trips in Europe down to Germany, up to Norway / Sweden and of course around the wonderful and lovely country of Denmark.
There has also been trips to Greece and in a few weeks time we will be taking a week on Mallorca... but the itch has always been there for myself to travel further a field and show the kids what is out there...

The wait has been long and hard but now the time is right... at the age of 7 and 8 (they will be 8 and 9 by the time we get there) we are ready to spread our wings and fly that little bit more :)

My first though was to USA and more to the point New York... from this we could also drive down to Washington DC and also up to Niagara to see the falls and maybe into Canada. This was a trip that I took on my own in 2005 and on this trip I fell in love with New York. I never thought that it would happen but it did and ever since I got back from there I have wanted to return.

We talked our plans through and we were both set on New York...