This brochure describes a 16-day tour from Chicago to Las Vegas and California destinations. I think the sickly green color of the brochure is supposed to represent gold, as in California is the Golden State and Las Vegas is where people can win gold. I don’t know if the color has faded or was unattractive when first printed. Though dated 1965, the brochure advertises tours in 1966.
Click image to download a 3.5-MB PDF of this menu.
The tour started on the City of Los Angeles, arriving in Vegas at the too-early hour of 4:30 am (the brochure points out that it is really 6:30 am for people on Central Time). The visit to Vegas was only 24 hours but included a trip to Hoover Dam and dinner and a floor show at the Riviera Hotel. Then a 4:50 am departure to Los Angeles.
Three-and-a-half days in Los Angeles included trips to Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, Universal City, and a night of dancing with the Lawrence Welk Orchestra. This was followed by a trip on the Coast Daylight to Salinas and a day-and-a-half in Monterey, a couple of days in Yosemite National Park, and a couple of days in San Francisco before taking the City of San Francisco back to Chicago.
The price for this all-expense trip was $534 for people willing to go coach and $630 for people wanting a roomette, which covered hotels, food, transportation, admissions — everything except gratuities, valet services, liquor, and other personal purchases. That sounds cheap but translates to $4,200 to $4,900 in today’s dollars. Since train and motorcoach travel consumed at least six of the days, the tour really spent just ten days at the various attractions, so the real cost was more than $400 a day.