Shopping for summer clothes in August

Dear All,

We have a trip planned to California in August. I am super excited as this will be my first trip to the USA! I thought I might want to shop for shorts, summer dresses and a few other summer items while we are there as it is winter here now and summer clothes will only hit our shops sometime while we are in the USA. That was until I saw Angie's post from yesterday saying shops are now starting to sell fall items. So, my question is whether I will still find summer clothes in shops by the time we get there? When do shops have their summer sales?

My next question relates to food items. Sorry if this is a ridiculous question, but I recently saw a comment on fb that made me wonder. We will be staying in self-catering places. We are not super health conscious, but we do try to avoid carbs in any form and will need good quality meat, fresh vegetables, pure butter, fresh full cream milk and full cream plain yoghurt. Are these items easy to get in most supermarkets?

(We will spend most of our time in Palm Springs, Lake Tahoe, San Fransisco and Anaheim)

Hope you can help.

Thank you.
Sanet.

9 years ago

rachylou

Veteran

Summer clothing will be on sale in August. Things are starting to go on sale now. I suspect you'll have plenty of fun shopping. No end of retail in Palm Springs and SF. Also, we don't get any real winter clothes in shops anyways, hehe. Re. food: California is the US's bread basket so to speak. You'll have no problem finding a wide variety of high quality, intriguing food stuffs. I never ate a canned vegetable until late in life, lol. This is not so elsewhere in this country. Farmer's Markets are big here; they're fun. And upscale groceries galore. Tahoe may not be so exciting, tho, in terms of food. But that may be my lack of adventure, when I go up to Tahoe, speaking. What sort of things do you have planned for your trip?

Btw, you won't learn anything about the US visiting us here in Cali. Haha! Jus' saying...

Diana

What Rachy said. There will still be loads of summer stuff although probably some fall stuff as well in stores. But "fall" in CA is like summer everywhere else.

Re: food. You should have no problem. Everything on your list can be bought at Whole Foods, and also probably at most regular grocery stores in higher end areas. But do check out the farmers' markets - they are amazing in CA!

Sanet

Active Member

Thanks Rachylou and Diana.

Rachylou, a really long trip all over the US is my DH's dream. For now California will have to do as an introduction. We got 10 year Visas so I'm sure we'll be back to explore different areas. The ZAR/USD exchange rate doesn't help...

Thanks again.

Barbara Diane

Also, please plan on layers - there can be quite a variation in weather between those locations. We can always tell who are the tourists among those walking across the Golden Gate Bridge as they are often cold looking in shorts and a t-shirt. The weather in SF can change from day to day and hour to hour. Evenings in Lake Tahoe can be cool. And weather predictions can be off, or change significantly.

crazyone

yes, summer clothes will be on sale at that time so you should be able to get some good deals! I personally dislike shopping in CA though because I don't like getting hit by a 8-10% sales tax on clothes when I actually live in MA and PA where the sales tax on clothes is...zero.

And CA has America's best food in terms of fresh produce and high quality foodstuffs. It's not that expensive, either, even though everything else in the state is

JAileen

Be sure to check the weather forecast. This weekend it's supposed to get down to the upper 30s F at Tahoe.

Mauvish

I will say it what others said above.
Do pack/keep a jacket handy. Weather changes very quickly depending how near or far are you from water.

Many areas of California are so so different from each other.

But I am sure that you will have a fabulous time here. Safe travels

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