Although the economy is in the tank, I figure we need to carve out some money for a little vacation once in awhile. I spent some time doing research to see if I can arrange a nice trip while saving money in the process. As I’ve searched the web, I found that the big-name websites can all find some good travel deals.

The choice of travel website should not only include finding the lowest price for car, hotel and air travel, you also want a company with a reputation for arranging a vacation without problems.  It also occurred to me that I should find a place where I can find good prices on travel costs, and maybe where I could drive my own car to save even more. Southern California certainly fits that description.

One website I found with some great information on Southern California is the SoCal Vacation Guru site.  At the present time, the site places particular emphasis on Orange County and Los Angeles County, with the stated goal of expanding its attention to San Diego County, San Bernardino County and Riverside County. You will find a great deal of local wisdom and information on Universal Studios from the SoCal Vacation Guru, as well as insight about beaches, Disneyland and other attractions.

The SoCal theme parks include Disneyland (with Disney’s California Adventure), Knott’s, Six Flags Magic Mountain, Universal Studios Hollywood, SeaWorld and Legoland. If you were really energetic you could fit all of those parks into a very busy vacation, but it would not be an inexpensive trip. Also, you might save on airfare and hotel reservations as it looks like the economy has a lot of hotels really wanting our business, unfortunately.

You might also get better deals now for tickets to theme parks, museums and other activities. Rather than flying to your vacation destination, you may find that, even with the crazy behavior of gasoline prices recently, you can save money by driving to Southern California this year.