USATourist Community

I will be moving my family back to the USA from Thailand soon.  On the way home to P.A., we are hoping to stop in L.A. where I will be attending a conference May 24-29. After the conference, we would like to get up to Sequoia National Park, but we don't have much time. Most of the tours from L.A. go to other places that we are not interested in (e.g. Reno, Sacremento). So I found a great tour that centers only on the park and provides botanical information during a full day tour. This suits us well. However, you have to actually be at Three Rivers to get the tour into the park.  I've tried to find information via the Internet on how I could take public transportation from L.A. to Three Rivers. The greyhound site didn't give a clear time schedule. The Amtrak goes only to Bakersfield, from what I could gather. I also asked the woman at the tour company, but the information she gave me was rather vague. She said there is a bus once a day from Vistalia to Three Rivers, and that doesn't run on weekends. I'm trying to actually reserve my flights in and out of LAX from here in Thailand, so it is starting to get frustrating because I just don't know if it is actually possible to get there by public transport or not. Frankly, I'd be petrified of renting a car and driving it around L.A.  (I've been driving on the other side of the road for the past 20 years and definitely would want more time to adjust!)  Does anyone have any concrete bus schedules or useful travel information/ advice?  I could just go ahead and reserve my plane tickets, and work out the details later, but that seems risky considering that we are actually trying to do this as we make the big move! (Household luggage being shipped separately, thank goodness).

Greyhound bus lines operate seven trips every day from Los Angeles to Visalia, California.  Here is a link to the Greyhound web pages.  It is a bit confusing to navigate, but you can check the schedules and the ticket prices by typing in Los Angeles and Visalia on the "Ticket" section.

From the city of Visalia, there is a bus to Sequoia that operates during the summer months, from Memorial day until Labor day.  That means it starts operating on May 25 2009 and will continue until September.  There are five trips every day beginning at 7AM.  Here is a link to the Visalia page about the shuttle.  According to this web page, the busses operate seven days a week.  Reservations are required, but you can do that from the web page.  I suggest that you contact them via e-mail to insure that the busses will be operating.

Thanks so much for your useful information. After checking the schedules I see it is possible, but probably difficult to do what we want to do. Still in the process of communicating with the tour company via email. Thanks once again for you quick reply to me. It was really helpful with reserving my plane tickets.