Californian Road Trip 2010 - Anyone got any ideas?

[Goochie]

My wife and I are looking to do a bit of a road trip in California during 2010 - most likely around May/June.

Sadly I can only take 2 weeks off work in one go so a massive expedition is out of the question. Provisionally we're looking at covering ground between L.A. and San Fransisco, taking in The Grand Canyon along the route.

Option 1 is a motorhome that would allow us to stop over somewhere nice or move on from a grotty place etc. Generally being as flexible as possible.

Option 2 would be to rent an open top car and stay in hotels and motels along the route. Potentially this would involve booking in advance and being less flexible.

Have you do something similar? If so, please share your thoughts/experience!

[john_p]

Everyone I've ever spoken to has said "Don't bother with LA". That includes someone that lived there

Don't forget the national parks of which there are many !

[Skipppy]

I have done something very similar although over the course of 4 months.

I would go for the car and motel option. IMO there is no need for flexibility that a motor home would offer although i can see the attraction...

[loafer123]

We did this for our honeymoon.

Started in the Napa valley for food & wine overload, then across to Yosemite for scenery, back over to Monterey for the sea, and then drove up route 1 to end up in Fat Stan's Disco.

Awesome.

[plg101]

Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Marin County (+ Napa and Sonoma for wine..) would be my steer.

Fly to SFO and have a few days in San Francisco first. LA sucks. Then start the driving adventure by driving over the golden gate bridge... :-)

Motel + car - look out for books of vouchers in tourist places that give you discount on motels.

[A1GOY]

I did the LA- SF trip in the summer. Go for the drop top as hotels and motels aren't really a problem. It's worth going to LA for one, maybe two nights to see some of it.
Death Valley isn't far away and it's worth a look round (we caught the XF-R testing), then Vegas is only a day (if you're slow) from that. You can get a bit of the end of Route 66 in too.
In SF, pop over the bay to Berkeley to see the hippy students, they're worth a giggle (though they do make very nice pasta).

HTH,

A1

[Saied]

I'd also recommend spending a couple of nights in the small coastal town of Santa Barbara. Very nice feel about the place.

Superb food and wonderful beer to be found in the decent cafes / restaurants / bars / pubs if that's your thing (its certainly mine!).

[ianash]

Goochie said:

My wife and I are looking to do a bit of a road trip in California during 2010 - most likely around May/June.

Sadly I can only take 2 weeks off work in one go so a massive expedition is out of the question. Provisionally we're looking at covering ground between L.A. and San Fransisco, taking in The Grand Canyon along the route.

Option 1 is a motorhome that would allow us to stop over somewhere nice or move on from a grotty place etc. Generally being as flexible as possible.

Option 2 would be to rent an open top car and stay in hotels and motels along the route. Potentially this would involve booking in advance and being less flexible.

Have you do something similar? If so, please share your thoughts/experience!

I drove the Big Sur about 18 months ago in a Ford Mustang convertible (new version). This entailed driving from San Francisco along Highway No1 which tracks the Pacific to Monterey. You can go Whale watching from here. Then on down to San Simeon staying on Highway 1 to have a look around Hearst Castle, a nice morning or pm diversion. Astounding scenery and fabulous open road driving.

I booked both car and the hotel on Hotwire.com. Seemed good value.

[Apache]

If you're staying on the coast San Diego is worth a look especially the

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/62606/vis...

stay here if you can

http://www.hoteldel.com/promotional-packages.aspx#...

then visit

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://ww...

[jeff m]

From a driving perspective do a search on "coastal road" and "Porsche"
Should bring up a few threads from other forums.
Add California obviously to reduce unwanted hits.

[ianash]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I know you can rent Harley's and similar but I believe they are a lot more expensive to hire and insure than a car.

[anonymous-user]

I used to live in Palo Alto, just south of San Fran and am a big fan of California.
I would look to do

- Napa Valley (possibly wine train)
- San Francisco (a few days)
- Drive down Highway 1, stay in Carmel.
- Head over to Yosemite Park.
- Drive to Las Vegas
- Visit Death Valley and Grand Canyon
- Possibly head to Bryce Canyon
- Avoid LA like the plague.
- Head back up Highway 1 stopping at nice places along the way.

[Quaint]

Firstly, the Grand Canyon is a hell of a way from the West coast. As in, 4 hours the other side of Las Vegas. As in, 1.5 days to get there from SF, 1.5 days back. So unless you're going to have access to a helicopter I'd forget that bit...

San Francisco is lovely, well worth spending a couple of days there if you can. Then you can head North before coming back to the South... North takes you into the biggest and most famous wine lands (Napa and Sonoma valleys). Napa is more developed, more touristy and less fun (IMO). Sonoma, Santa Rosa and Healdsburg are all nice towns with a good selection of places to stay, eat and drink. Lots of wineries to visit, as well. If you're going to Sonoma it's worth going up the little coast roads from SF - via Stinson Beach and Tamales Bay. Last time I was there, I spent 3 days staying in Healdsburg and exploring the area - it was great fun, we found a great set of wineries whoe produce to enjoy and the scenery (especially the Russian River valley and the hills around Lake Sonoma) is gorgeous. Heartily recommended.

Heading South from SF, get on Route 1. And stay there at least as far as Santa Barbara. Route 1 passes along the Big Sur coast, which is some of the finest scenery I have ever seen. The road is awesome (I've always wanted to sling a 911 along it) but in the summer will be crowded as hell and your speed will be limited to that of the RV at the head of the long queue of traffic you're stuck in - so sit back and enjoy the scenery. It's still much nicer than the freeway alternative IMO!

Monterey is a good place to break your journey and a good urban-ish base if you want to do some walking in the national parks around here - though there are plenty of hotels and motels along the way which would probably be my choice. The awesomely named Julia Pfeiffer Burns Park is worth a visit for the walking, and further South near San Luis Obispo is Hearst Castle which is a peerless monument to one man's vaulting ambition... Santa Barbara is indeed a fun town - just like the California you see in the movies. Personally, I'd pick up Highway 101 in Santa Barbara, bypass LA (to the extent you can - it's HUGE) and head straight for San Diego. Again, plenty to see and do in the town or you can base yourself in La Jolla and enjoy the beach life for a couple of days before coming home.

[Fane]

+1 on the San Diego front.

[Iain328]

Goochie said:

My wife and I are looking to do a bit of a road trip in California during 2010 - most likely around May/June.

Sadly I can only take 2 weeks off work in one go so a massive expedition is out of the question. Provisionally we're looking at covering ground between L.A. and San Fransisco, taking in The Grand Canyon along the route.

Option 1 is a motorhome that would allow us to stop over somewhere nice or move on from a grotty place etc. Generally being as flexible as possible.

Option 2 would be to rent an open top car and stay in hotels and motels along the route. Potentially this would involve booking in advance and being less flexible.

Have you do something similar? If so, please share your thoughts/experience!

You'll need to get yr geography straight first ! Grand Canyon is in Nevada in the general direction of Las Vegas so nowhere near LA/SFO. Similarly San Diego is well south of LA. Suggest you do some rough google mapping & get some ideas about distances because they are generally much greater than we are used to here. LA to SF is a 6-8 hour drive at least.

Also remember some of the coastal areas In So. Cal have been badly affected by fires in recent years so there may not be too much left to see in some places.

Places in Cali to consider visiting: San Fran, Sacramento & Lake Tahoe area, Yosemite, Napa, Central coast Santa Barbara, San Diego, Death Valley, Mammoth Lakes area, Baja.

....but there is no way you'll do them all in 2 weeks so don't try, its a very, very big place.

Down the middle of california (Where I5 goes) there is really not much to see - just miles & miles of fields.

[eddie1980]

A quote from a San Fran resident when I was on my way through to LA sums it up for me.

"LA? Geee why do you want to go to LA, I don't know why we went all the way to Iraq when we could have just bombed LA"

[Rofly Lollers]

john_p said:

Everyone I've ever spoken to has said "Don't bother with LA". That includes someone that lived there

Don't forget the national parks of which there are many !

I keep hearing that, but I quite like the place. I always stay in the Four Seasons Beverly Wilshire (formerly the Regent/RBW), The CUT at the BW is a Wolfgang Puck restaurant and is fantastic, visit the Grove, Farmer's market, look at the freaks on Venice Beach, pop down to La Habra to Boyd Coddington's garage to see if there is anything interesting, shop at Westfield, take a drive through Beverly Hills etc.

I'll be going back to CA later this year, my advice would be to avoid renting anything underpowered American econobox unless you need to save the pennies. I had a Q7 for 3 weeks which was great for the roads over there. I went from LA>Laguna Beach>
San Diego>Mexico day trip>Indian Wells/Palm Springs>Scottsdale AZ>Las Vegas>Death Valley>LA.

[Saied]

eddie1980 said:

A quote from a San Fran resident when I was on my way through to LA sums it up for me.

"LA? Geee why do you want to go to LA, I don't know why we went all the way to Iraq when we could have just bombed LA"

Downtown Baghdad is just what a southern suburb of LA appeared to resemble to me, viewed from a slightly elevated Route 5 as I drove through heading northbound.

Would not be a nice part of the freeway to have broken down on in the middle of the night.

[Rofly Lollers]

Saied said:

eddie1980 said:

A quote from a San Fran resident when I was on my way through to LA sums it up for me.

"LA? Geee why do you want to go to LA, I don't know why we went all the way to Iraq when we could have just bombed LA"

Downtown Baghdad is just what a southern suburb of LA appeared to resemble to me, viewed from a slightly elevated Route 5 as I drove through heading northbound.

Would not be a nice part of the freeway to have broken down on in the middle of the night.

The first year we went there, we ended up in Compton when my wife decided she could navigate to La Habra on surface streets instead of using the freeways. Stopped at every traffic light I had to remind her to "Put down the map and look local"

Edited by Rofly Lollers on Monday 26th January 16:44

[oxford drinker]

Try San Fransisco to Seattle, very easy in a fortnight.