We left scenic Ventura earlyish the following morning with the aim to visit Santa Barbara, on our way up to a place called San Luis Obispo where we had booked into the hostel for the night. The weather was lovely and it was an awful lot less smoggy than LA so we cruised(!) with the roof down. The journey was easy - we're getting to be old hands at this navigating our way around the States lark now. What we've found fascinating about all the places we'...

We left San Diego at about lunchtime, feeling a little the worse for wear. And it was my turn to drive. This was the first time that we'd driven somewhere with no idea as to where we would sleep that evening and it felt kind of strange, but a place called Ventura had been recommended to us as it is about 30 miles south of Santa Barbara where we wanted to go the following day and it was reputedly a hell of a lot cheaper. We left San Diego confident in the knowledg...

I messed up...if you're reading this, read the entry dated 26 September first!Because it's taken such a long time for us to get internet access it feels like I'm writing about things that happened years ago when it's actually only 6 days! The day after we went to Tijuana we decided to go to the 'world famous' San Diego zoo. We're getting into this economising lark (or at least Em is and I'm trotting obediently behind her) and so de...

We're now in San Diego after having had a really nice couple of last days in Los Angeles. We made it up to the J Paul Getty Center without too much difficulty and with a considerable amount of pride in ourselves. The place is magnificent, the museum is in 4 massive wings and is set in the most amazing gardens. You get great views of the LA skyline in the smog and it's a surreally calm place after the madness of the city. It was boiling hot the day we went...

So this travelling malarkey seems to have completely messed up our sleeping patterns as yesterday Emily and I were wide awake at 6.30am. We decided that rather than lying around listening to people snore (surely if you know you snore you should be obliged not to book into 10 bed dorms in hostels?) we'd get up and go for a wander. We went back down to the beach, and were met by some distinct 'American-ness'. Literally everywhere you looked there were t...