Traveling help, from new york or new jersey to arizona.

Question

I'm planning on going to Arizona in the spring. I want to go to the grand canyon and I was wondering if anyone could answer a few questions

(I do plan on flying)

I'll have about 3,000 dollars by then.

-Enough money? And to stay for how long?

-Where is the closest airport to the grand canyon

-When should I buy plane tickets?

-How much will ticket cost? Round trip.

-I'm 18, and I'm going with someone 22. Can we rent a car?

-If neither of us are old enough, Are there transportation services?

I need all the help I can get.

I haven't really traveled much.

Thanks for anyone that cna give me any direction.

Answer 1

Many questions you have asked But luckily I have all the answers

1) Yes you can and actually have to rent a car .

The 22 year old person will have to do it and the rental company will charge you what is called  an"age differential fee " of about $ 30.00 per day

You will of course require a major credit card to rent the car But in many cases the combination of what your own auto insurance offers and what the credit card company  offers will allow you not to buy the additional insurance that the car rental

company wants to sell you.Check with both your ins co & the cc co prior to leaving

2) Although there are closer airports>GCN &FLG>

Your best two choices will be  either Las Vegas

>LAS <or  Phoenix Sky Harbor  >PHX

Having flown into all four of those airport on several occassions and and LAS & PHX many many times Iwould  fly into LAS

Why ?Because among other things LAS offers you the option of cruising over to Death Valley NP as a day trip[which looks like another planet and is truly one of the really special places in America ] and easily going to the S.Rim of the Canyon via Zion NP >The N.Rim & across the Navajo Nation >very cool way to do it .

Pop into mapquest as

LAS> Mount Carmel Junction UT>Lees Ferry AZ> GCN

3)Spring is a great time to be hiking the Inner  Canyon although not as good as the middle of winter is it is far far better than summer.

http://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/ba...

4) Lodging ;

In or close to the Park

http://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/lo...

In LAS you don't have to use the big or expensive hotels .There's a Motel 6 & Super 8

basically across the street from the MGM Grand

They're on Tropicana & Koval respectively

You can also use the Days Inn website

Motel Numbers 1.3.4.& 5 will all work

http://www.daysinn.com/DaysInn/control/B...

If you go to The S.Rim via Zion NP

You can also just get the frog out of town[LAS} driving the two hours and planning on spending the night in the much cheaper and more wholesome town of St George UT

http://www.stgeorgelodging.com/

5) Far as buying tickets go I would wait until close to the election b/c  I have a feeling that miraculously fuel prices will drop by then

As far has to route it goes :

When I used to do it on a regular basis  I would route it  JFK>LAX >LAS . or JFK >SFO>LAS

b/c it's just an easier flight and I don't have to worry about delays

If you change JFK to EWR  then you should be able to do a similar routing

Because you are flying in Spring and the weather  can be crappy  like snow or  ice storms   if you do have a change of aircraft at mid continent i.e DFW,DEN ,ORD allow yourself  2 hours to make the connection

Safe trip