Evening Standard (London): California cruising

NOW that the kids do their own holiday thing, we decided to do ours.

We have wanted to see the West Coast for years but it is an expensive trip for a family. Without the children, though, we could hit Route 66, turn up the stereo and cruise. Or something like that. Route 66, we later discovered, no longer exists (the signs just say "Formerly Route 66"), but it didn't matter - we found, instead, a variety of landscapes, people, food, wine, weather and radio stations as we headed out on the highway looking for adventure.

We did it all. Ate shrimp in Sausalito, stood in blazing sun on the lip of half-mile-wide Ubehebe Crater in Death Valley, took a sky- high Jacuzzi in a Reno casino hotel and had sushi and Chardonnay on Sunset Boulevard. And not only were we still speaking after two weeks of my map-reading, but both agreed we'd had our best holiday in years.

First, driving in the US is not the same as driving here. It is pleasurable (with the exception of Los Angeles). The roads are long and wide, superbly surfaced (except in Death Valley) and mainly empty.

Second, our hired Buick was like riding a comfy sofa. Petrol is cheap, filling stations serve at least 12 varieties of coffee as well as 700 types of in-car snack and there is a friendly, cheap hotel/ motel within spitting distance of every road.

We drove almost 2,500 miles and discovered some basic truths about the US and ourselves. First, the great outdoors is truly great when Americans leave it alone - like the ghost town of Bodie, where once 10,000 mostly lawless souls dug dirt and found gold in 1859. Now a state park, it has been left untouched and thus has a Marie Celeste eeriness.

Wood shacks still house crumbling furniture; stuffing spilling from a dusty chaise longue, torn muslin curtains flapping at the window.

There is no burger bar, no fast food, no rest rooms (except a wood- framed cesspit) - and it is all the better for the lack of these things.

Ditto Yosemite, where the milehigh valley cliffs stun day- trippers into awed silence; likewise the silent Death Valley, where the Eureka Dunes rear up 700ft from the desert floor, and the Wonder Mine gondolas still hang in mid-air, exactly where they came to a halt when the mine was abandoned, more than a hundred years ago.

The famous Big Sur Pacific coast drive, the Calaveras Big Trees State Park - all the areas where native visitors chant the mantra "take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints" - benefit from being left in their natural state.

Yet the flipside works, too, when the world's mightiest nation puts its mind - and money - to making a big show. We loved Reno, "the biggest little city in the world", where the Circus Circus casino- hotel (a small circus performs every half-hour) vies for custom with the Silver Legacy (which houses a 120ft mining derrick). We chose Atlantis (water cascades, jungle foliage between the rows of slots) and paid $80 for a24thfloor room with a desert view and a window- side Jacuzzi, then won $71 at the roulette table, cashed in our chips and headed out of town.

Spending 24/7 together - much of it in a car - for two weeks tells you things you didn't know about each other. Christian radio stations make my husband laugh but me gag. And I do read maps better than he does (honest).

But he doesn't panic when he's on a seven-lane freeway heading south in LA when we need to go north.

Way to go

BERNICE Davison flew to San Francisco with British Airways, booked through Airline Network (0870 241 0090, www.airline-network.co.uk), current returns from pounds 375.40. Departures daily from Heathrow. Fourteen nights car hire with Dollar Rent A Car (0800 085 4578, www.dollar.co.uk), currently pounds 378 for a midsize Dodge Stratus.

Adventures for empty-nesters

A 13-NIGHT cycling tour of Vietnam is offered by Saga Holidays (0800 096 0078). Trip starts in Danang and ends in Ho Chi Minh City and cyclists (on hired mountain bikes) have a backup vehicle.

Depart in September, from pounds 1,699.

Wildlife Worldwide (020 8667 9158) recommends its 11-day Discover Tanzania safari for armchair wildlife fans who find themselves able to experience the real thing. Takes in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater. Year-round, from pounds 2,095.

The 22-day Peru Explorer with Exodus (020 8675 5550) combines exploration with hotel comforts, April-November, from pounds 2,359 per person plus pounds 175 paid locally for some meals.

Travelsphere (0800 19 14 18) has exclusive charter of the train formerly used by Chairman Mao. An 11-day rail trip from Beijing to Shanghai, from pounds 1,395. Departures May, June, September, October and November.

Sally Shalam