I have a short attention span, so short I even got bored just then, halfway through typing the word "span". This means when planning a holiday, I tend to balk at the prospect of a week or two flopping on a beach. What if I get restless and walk into the sea? More to the point, and going on past experience, what if I get so sunburned on day one I spend the rest of the holiday staggering around like someone who's just crawled their way clear of a nuclear blast? There's only so many times you can say "ouch" before you get tired of hearing yourself wince.
That's why my ideal holiday is a road trip. All that variety! And sitting down! It's like watching television, but better, because every so often you get to step out into the landscape you're watching and interact with it. And it's in 3D! Perfect.
Apart from one tiny problem. I can't drive. I've done road trips before - in the US, obviously, because that's the Kingdom of Road Trips - and each time, I've had to recruit/con (delete where applicable) licence-holding friends or girlfriends into coming. Since the ideal trip lasts around three weeks, and has a cast of more than two, arranging the details isn't always easy, particularly when you try to do it at short notice. I don't know many people prepared to drop everything to spend the best part of a month driving from state to state. Although it turns out I do know one: my improbable friend Aisleyne, tabloid staple and former Big Brother contestant. She, preposterous as it sounds, would be my rock, my "core driver", for the duration of the trip. Others would accompany us for different sections: for the first leg, through California, my friend Urmee and an ex, Cat. For the second half, two other friends: Kelly and Ben, who'd fly out to meet us when we got to Las Vegas.
The whole thing was organised in a blur. It was only when I got to the airport that it struck me: none of these people knew each other. Most of them had never met. And they were a fairly diverse bunch. This was like throwing a bizarre mobile birthday party.
But I wasn't worried about that. I was worried about the flight. I'm not a good flier. I don't flip out on board and start hammering at the exits; I just sit there nervily envisaging a death plunge for the duration of the journey. And in the days leading up to take-off, I feel doomy and bleak, like I'm on a self-imposed death row. But this time around I had some valium. I'd never taken it before, and I'm glad I did. Neck the pill and 20 minutes later: bingo. Suddenly nothing really mattered. Instead of gripping the armrest during take-off, I lay back in my seat exhibiting the sort of blissful insouciance you'd normally associate with a man who's just been tossed off in a massage parlour.
We arrived in San Francisco and picked up our car: an unsexy people carrier the size and shape of an industrial refrigerator. A sports convertible may sound fun, but just try driving through the desert in one: within the hour you'd be hallucinating with sunstroke so badly, you'd swerve off the road, thinking you were traversing the rings of Saturn or driving inside Joan Collins's face.
Still, there was no driving at all for the first two days. There's scarcely any point taking a car into San Francisco: it's a collection of steep hills with no parking spaces. We explored on foot. The first day was spent aimlessly wandering around in a kind of daze as we tried to acclimatise. San Francisco is the US equivalent of Brighton. It's quaint, it's a gay mecca, it's by the sea, and it's foggy and cold.
I'd taken the precaution of pre-booking tickets for a night tour of Alcatraz (piece of piss: you buy them online and print the tickets yourself). It's essential to book in advance, and well worth the effort, if only for the bit on the tour where you stand in a solitary confinement cell listening to a former inmate explain how he kept himself sane in the dark by ripping a button off his shirt, throwing it in the air and spending the rest of the night searching for it on his hands and knees. If you enjoy harrowing glimpses into the dark heart of man's inhumanity to man, you'll have a whale of a time. I certainly did.
The next day we wandered around Haight-Ashbury. Once the birthplace of the hippy movement, it's now a sort of cross between Shoreditch and Camden: all trendy shops and organic cafes. Since I was accompanied by girls, I spent most of my time standing impatiently in clothes stores, listening to them coo over assorted pieces of fabric.
Still, at least I got to eat a gigantic burrito, which, as it turned out, would be my biggest meal of the entire trip. Women don't eat really, do they? At least, this lot didn't. All they wanted, every night, was sushi. Sushi, sushi, sushi. Before you accuse them and me of insufferable wankery, bear in mind that sushi in the States is far cheaper and better than in Britain. By the end of the trip I'd inhaled more fish than a sperm whale, but at least I hadn't clogged my colon with 10,000 burgers and steaks.
Then we got in the car and headed out. First stop: Santa Cruz. Satnav has transformed road trips, skimming hours from your journey time - not so much on the open road, but on the fiddly bits when you're looking for a motel. Get an address in advance and you arrive effortlessly, auto-piloted all the way to their front door.
I've been to Santa Cruz before. That time it was great: a sun-drenched, laid-back surfer's town with an old-fashioned beachfront fairground complete with wooden rollercoaster. This time it was overcast and all the girls had PMS, so we didn't hang around. The next morning we stopped in Monterey, checked out its superb aquarium (which features a mind-mangling display of artificially lit jellyfish, hovering in space like tiny galaxies), and decided to tackle the drive down Big Sur at sunset.
Big Sur is, as any guidebook will tell you, spectacular: all winding roads, cliffs, sheer drops, and the ocean. Being a media-saturated ponce, however, I couldn't quite shake the feeling that I was in an upscale car commercial, albeit a gloriously beautiful one. Television spoils everything.
Then it got dark. Big Sur takes longer than you think, and driving around the side of cliffs in the dark is Not Fun. There was, it's fair to say, a certain amount of screaming, especially when a spooky guy in a knackered van insisted on tailing us for a full hour. He was definitely a murderer. Definitely.
Eventually we made it to San Luis Obispo, to stay in the apparently notorious Madonna Inn: part-motel, part design nightmare. No corner of the Earth could be more gaudy. We sat at the bar. It resembled archive footage of 60s Vegas playing on a TV with the colour cranked up to hallucinogenic levels. Every surface was Pepto-Bismol pink or electric blue. A terrifying giant doll hung overhead, lolling back and forth on a mechanical swing. This is what serial killers see in their heads when they come. I recommend it wholeheartedly.
The next day, still rubbing our eyes, we made for Santa Barbara, a relaxing boutique of a town, clean to the point of artificial, with miles of beach. It's what you imagine California is like in your head when you're 12. Accommodation isn't cheap, but it's the perfect place to unwind - particularly if you enjoy sunbathing, which I don't. Disturbing sight of the day: a bikini-clad Paris Hilton-style beach bunny sitting on a towel with the words "WHITE PRIDE" tattooed in gothic script across her lower back. Aisleyne had to be talked out of walking over and lamping her.
Next stop: Los Angeles. Sadly, the hotel we'd booked turned out to be a) next to the airport, b) a 40-minute drive from anywhere interesting, and c) a self-consciously trendy hangout apparently designed to personally annoy me. The lifts played canned laughter when you arrived at your floor. That's not a metaphor: that's what they actually did. And the mini-bar didn't include cold drinks, but did have a packet of radish seeds and one of those little table-tennis bats with a rubber ball hanging off a bit of elastic. Q: What's the difference between quirky irony and infuriating "You Don't Have to Be Mad to Work Here But it Helps!" wackiness? A: None.
Sadly, I had work to do in LA. Not high-powered meetings with movie execs. No. Just my usual Guardian writing duties. So I had to sit in the hotel room, tapping at a laptop, while the girls went off and swanned around. At one point I had a break and took a cab to an outdoor mall. Sinatra was being piped in from invisible speakers somewhere in the trees, and everyone was far slimmer than the last time I was here. Suddenly I felt like scum. It made me want to smoke. I quit smoking in February, and now the sheer Tupperware mock-pleasantness of everything surrounding me was threatening to undo my resolve. I bought a pack, lit one, and immediately extinguished it. No. No.
I was happy to leave LA. I was less happy with Cat's driving. We were heading for Vegas, and she appeared to be in a hurry. Perhaps she'd robbed a bank while I wasn't looking. Either way, she was hell-bent on squeezing a four-hour drive into 10 minutes. But when you can't drive, you're robbed of the ability to complain. Instead I distracted myself by selecting our driving soundtrack from an MP3 player. At least that way I'd be able to listen to the Beatles while the fire crew cut us from the wreckage.
Fortunately it didn't come to that and we arrived in one piece. Then things instantly turned strange. Knowing I was going to be staying in Vegas, the Guardian had sent out feelers to see if anyone was prepared to offer free, interesting accommodation to one of its writers. I'd get a nice place to stay, they'd get some publicity (good or bad, it's all publicity). That's how it works.
The Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino said yes. And because I would be covering it for this piece, they pulled out all the stops. I wasn't quite prepared for what happened. First, we were introduced to our own personal butler, the instantly charming Bisrat. He took us to our suite, which turned out to comprise four huge individual rooms branching off a massive lounge the size of a fashionable London bar. It had a pool table, a bar, a table football machine, a plasma screen on every available surface, some wacky sculptures, a breathtaking view of the strip, and - right there in the lounge - a free-standing shower with a lap-dancing pole in the middle of it.
Bisrat immediately uncorked a bottle of wine and poured us each a glass. I needed it. Drop me in the middle of opulence like this and I automatically feel like a burglar.
No matter how often I looked round the place, I couldn't get used to it. It looked like a set. You could film an entire aspirational drama series about hard-partying city hotshots in there, if you were an arsehole. Suddenly I wondered: what appalling scenes has this place witnessed in the past? How many hookers have twirled round that pole? Did housekeeping routinely wipe it clean each morning? Brrr.
Urmee and Cat flew home. Kelly flew in, followed shortly by Ben. I was talked, somehow, into going to a club. It was called Tryst, and was situated in the middle of the Wynn casino, a horrible slab of money and pretension designed to appeal squarely to absolute wankers. The club was rammed with beautiful women and hideous men. It had a waterfall, expensive drinks, and a dancefloor full of whooping twats throwing banknotes in the air. Good, I thought. The economy is tanking. This looks like the last days of Rome. Then another thought struck me: here I was, with two improbably glamorous women, in Vegas. Everyone thought I'd paid for them. Because that makes sense in Vegas.
Furthermore, going round Vegas with these two was like escorting two female models through a prison. The foul, hollow, forced party vibe I found bleakly amusing on previous trips now felt sickly and threatening. It's like a permanent New Year's Eve, my worst night of the year. Everyone pretending to let go and enjoy themselves. All of it fake, as fake as the replica Eiffel tower dominating Paris, the fake French casino. It's an atmosphere in which idiots thrive. The next day, by the pool, I saw a trio of muscled-up body-fascist lunkheads loudly haranguing an out-of-shape middle-aged man with lots of body hair. "Hey dude, you're totally rocking that mohair sweater," they yelled, again and again. They stood right over him. "Seriously, it's awesome." They said it over and over, until he left. Shamefully, I did nothing. They'd have killed me.
A few hours later, a drunk buffoon swiped Aisleyne's camera and took photos of his own spectacularly ugly testicles in a doomed bid to impress the ladies. The perfect metaphor for Vegas.
Back in the suite, while the Bellagio casino's multi-million dollar fountain display erupted across the road, every plasma screen was filled with Obama and McCain and red flashing numbers and ECONOMY IN CRISIS. Las Vegas is mad at the best of times. In this context, it seemed downright insane. The trend in recent years has been for swankier and swankier casinos: the Bellagio and the Wynn are essentially Dynasty box sets made flesh. Now the credit crunch has left them looking like big, dumb relics. Towering, empty hangovers. They felt underpopulated compared to the downmarket tack-pits which, comparatively, were overflowing. If gloomy economic predictions are correct, Vegas is going to turn very ugly very quickly.
Not that I spent the whole time scowling. After all, I was in the lap of luxury. The food, the service, the furnishings - it was all one unending blowjob. But it felt like a blowjob taking place seconds before a mushroom cloud appears on the horizon. Stupidly - incredibly stupidly - I started smoking, seduced by the novelty of being able to light up indoors, which felt as exotic as smoking underwater. Argh. By the time you read this, I'll be in the process of my umpteenth 72-hour quitting process. Thanks, Vegas. Once again, I was glad to leave.
By now we were behind on our itinerary. The next few days consisted of near non-stop driving. Another rule of road trips: allow far more time than you think you'll need. We sprinted through Monument Valley. Amazing landscape, yes: but when you're in a hurry it's essentially just another load of rocks. Then a mammoth drive all the way to Albuquerque.
If you find yourself anywhere near Albuquerque, go on the Sandia Peak aerial tramway. Just do it. It's the longest mountain cable car in the world, and it's terrifying and beautiful at once. Half your brain is lulled by the scenery, while the other half screams about death. There's a bar at the top. I drank a pint with shaking hands.
After Albuquerque, we stopped in a charming town called Truth or Consequences, named after a 1950s radio show that offered to broadcast an episode from the first town prepared to change its name to that of the show. Before that it was called Hot Springs, and with good reason. Because it's full of hot springs. Most of the motels double as spas. Go there. It's bloody lovely.
Between Truth or Consequences and the hill country of Texas, there wasn't much to do but drive, drive, drive, with the occasional overnight stop in a shithole. Thank God we were getting on, because it's a bit like being stuck in a small air-conditioned cell, albeit one with an interesting view out the window. The sheer amount of space in America can become overwhelming: the road is straight, and it stretches all the way to the horizon, forever.
Finally we made it to Bandera, Texas, for a two-day stay at the Running-R Guest Ranch. This was possibly the best part of the entire trip, and certainly the most relaxing. Stay in a cabin! Fall asleep in a rocking chair! Ride a horse! I've never ridden a horse before: fortunately, they're prepared for greenhorns. You just climb on its back and it follows the other horses, like a software-driven electronic car. I kept forgetting it was a real animal, except every so often it'd stop for a piss or stumble a bit on a rock. That wakes you up. All the staff were impossibly friendly: Kelly and Aisleyne were particularly taken with one of our cowgirl hosts, whose life they envied so hard it almost hurt them.
Our final destination was Houston, of which I saw little more than a soulless shopping mall, some skyscrapers and a thunderstorm. Oh, and a pair of swans, improbably bobbing around in a pool in the hotel lobby. Houston doubtless has far more to offer, but I didn't have time to see it. I had to fly home.
In summary: not a relaxing holiday, but an insanely eventful one. We tried to cram too much in to the time we had, which is why both the trip itself and this article were full of fleeting snapshots. For the distance we travelled (SF to LA to Vegas to Houston) I'd allow at least an extra week. Otherwise you spend a bit too much time rubbernecking and fiddling with iPods in the passenger seat. Nonetheless, the US is undoubtedly a great place to visit. Friendly people, stunning scenery, and if you pick your motels wisely, it's cheap, too. Go while it's still there.
Way to go
Getting there
Trailfinders (0845 058 5858, trailfinders.com) has flights to San Francisco, and out of Houston, from £359pp rtn; and car hire from £132 pw.
Where to stay
The Madonna Inn, San Luis Obispo (001 805 543 3000, madonnainn.com) from $179 pn. Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas (+866 517 3263, planethollywood.com) from $102. Embassy Suites Houston (+713 626 5444, embassysuites.com) from $229. Custom Hotel, Los Angeles (+310 6450400, customhotel.com) from $99. Running-R Guest Ranch (+830 7963984, rrranch.com) from $125.
Further information
Texas Tourist Board (020-7978 5233, traveltex.com). Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (020-7367 0979, visitlasvegas.co.uk). LA Inc (discoverlosangeles.com).