poi for usa trips

If you click on the "POI Files" tab at the top here and go to the extended list there are a zillion POI's for you depending on your interests. Scroll to California.

Big list.....
http://www.poi-factory.com/poifiles/alpha

California attractions

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/2727

You came to the right place to find POI. The ones here are most often more complete and accurate than the ones included with your GPS. That being said, the list can be overwhelming at first especially for someone coming from another country where some American brand names may be unfamiliar.

Within this list are fast food as well as sit-down restaurants mostly listed by name or type (e.g. bar-b-que). There is also an update list based on a popular American TV show: Diners, Drive-ins and Dives that includes the locations featured in the various episodes. Most are Mom and Pop affairs and specialize in menu items that some consider exceptional or different.

Do a search on this site for POI with generic keywords, such as food, restaurant, tourist, hotel, fuel, vegas, etc. and you will have many choices. Hint... As you look at your choices to download, look at the date the file was last updated, not the creation date. Understand that files that may not have been updated in many years will likely be less useful but not necessarily useless.

From a personal perspective, I use these files not so much as recommendations, but as a means to locate a business or attraction that I want to patronize. When in an unfamiliar location, I often use TripAdvisor to pick a restaurant or hotel, make a call to verify that they are open or have a place for me, then use the GPS to get me there.

As for fuel, you should have little concern unless you are driving a large RV where easy access to pumps might be an issue. You will find that most exits along the major roads have 24 hour gas stations and in cities, you will find stations every few blocks in areas where there are attractions and shopping.

Assuming your are renting a car... A tip for Las Vegas: The major hotels along the strip have parking garages in the back that are open to the public and free, unless you desire, there is no need to depend on the valet parking. When we visit and are not staying on the strip, we simply pick a hotel (MGM, Excalibur, Treasure Island, etc.) drive around the back and park in the garage, remember which hotel, level and section (they are big), and then walk or take the trams and monorail to where we want to go. When driving in Vegas, the strip in itself is an attraction and one needs to drive through it once, but for getting around, simply take the parallel streets and there is hardly any traffic by comparison.

Enjoy your visit to America.

For sure download Rest Areas Combined and add a 1 1/2 to 2 mile proximity alert.

If you have a preferred hotel and restaurant chain, add those, but proximity alert not recommended, unless you want unnecessary alerts.

Gas stations will often want you to enter "Zip Code", if you pay at the pump. Like us Canadians, you Brits have postal codes consisting of letters and numbers, not just numbers.

Try using the numbers in your postal code followed by 2 zeroed. Eg: Postal Code N3N 1M6 would be 31600. Pump will accept. Can't be sure if this will work for UK postal codes, but worth a try.

Otherwise you will have to prepay, or leave your wife as a hostage while you fill up.

Get a US credit card from your UK bank if possible and even a US bank account. The conversion rates on a UK card will be a few percentage points higher than a US card. US account allows you to stock up on US funds when rates are favourable and my Canadian bank gives me preferential conversion rates with my US account.

Invest in a small powered cooler, when you get to US, that you can plug into a car lighter socket and a 115 volt to 12 vdc converter. When we travel, we pickup sandwiches, pop, etc and we stop at a park or rest area for a picnic lunch. Take into room at night and plug into adapted to keep cool.

Most of the rest areas I've been to in the US have nice Park settings to allow you to enjoy a picnic lunch. Usually no gas, washrooms water and picnic tables.

I've had people visit Canada from UK in the past and they have no concept about how big the US and Canada are. UK is smaller than many US states or Canadian provinces.

I suggest you plot your trip on Basecamp or another mapping program, if this is all new to you. It will give an appreciation, just how long and far to get from one place to another

Walmart is a great place to get almost anything. Unless you're a wine conouseour, Walmart's $3.00 wine is pretty good. Plus you can get sandwiches, food, clothes and even the power cooler that I suggested. Definitely download the Walmart file.

FYI
Vegas hotels on the strip (S Las Vegas Blvd) start charging parking fee now. Self parking is no longer free. I believe not all hotels charge parking fee at the moment but eventually all hotels will no longer offer free self park. It's just like the resort fee. Now all hotels impose mandatory resort fee (in addition to the price per night) somewhere between $25 to $45 per night depending on the hotel.

At most hotels, valet parking is only for hotel guests during peak time (usually weekend/evenings). They will ask for hotel keys (or cards) to prove that you're staying there.

You should try my Offbeat Tourist Attractions .. Even just to see fun and unique places around you. I hear lot of folks like this one for that purpose.

You may have to build your own POIs from the many POI files downloaded from this site. Extract only the POIs you need and save it in a new file to import to your Nuvi.

... I spent two weeks travelling the East coast over Easter last year. I took a UK credit card that had no fees and a good exchange rate, check out the Martin Lewis website for the current best overseas cards.

It's been 3 years since we were there. I guess they felt they weren't getting enough sales from the foot traffic the parking garages generated. We were usually selecting the garage for the hotel that we had tickets for a show that evening. Effectively, this makes the show cost a bit more if you have to pay for the parking also.