A driving holiday over Christmas and New Year visiting Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco and places in between. We landed in LA on 24 December, spent Christmas Day in Disneyland, headed to Las Vegas, then San Francisco via Death Valley to see friends, and back to LA driving along Highway 1, the Pacific Ocean coast highway. We had about two weeks in total.

Disneyland and DisneyWorld are manufactured experiences to some extent, and we had been to both before, but they are fun, so one more trip was in order. Las Vegas and Death Valley were new, and from them emerged the realisation that nature is probably more important than cities for me. Las Vegas is hugely popular but it must be one of the strangest places on earth as well - as least Las Vegas Boulevard. A theme park of a different nature, with a side that's not quite as innocent as the Disney experience.

Death Valley was fascinating and here the power of nature is clear. San Francisco is familiar territory, and we've driven the coast highway before, but somehow both were still new. A lot of driving, probably too much, but a good time was had.