California adventure-advice please?

[AmericanAdventure]

We are thinking of going to California in the summer. Wondering if anyone else has done anything similar and has any advice or ideas to pack in loads of great experiences.

We have 3 weeks. Will fly there from the Heathrow and hire a car.. Would definitely like to see San Francisco, Disney, Grand Canyon (not Cal but close enough).

Looking for places to stay, areas to avoid, activities not to miss, car hire recommendations, best route to take etc.

Thanks to anyone who can share any I formation.

We did California trip 4 years ago and absolutely loved it. Was a holiday of a lifetime for us. Only two of us though no kids.

Flew to San Fran and had 3 nights there. Stayed in the financial district. Then picked up a hired car. Drive down highway 1 with a very loose plan. Used booking.com to book all accommodation a few days in advance.

Places we visited:
Santa Cruz
Santa barbra
Morro bay
Carmel
San Diego
LA.

We didn’t do Vegas and Yosemite’s as we have been there before.

We absolutely loved most places apart from LA. Dodgy and overrated in my opinion. Did have a good day at universal studios though.

Hope you have a fabulous time

We loved San Diego (of course nothing to do with the Stone Brewing Company ), and stayed at Palm Springs on the way back to SD from Vegas. Good to stop and see the San Andreas fault, plus the water park there was good fun (think it reopens for 2020?) - take flip flops though as the concrete paths were scorching.

If you do stop at Santa Cruz - do the old fashioned rollercoaster.

We had 3.5 weeks on the west coast. Started off with a week in LA to recover from jet lag, did universal, Disney, Hollywood, Santa Monica and Venice Beach. Then up to Yosemite for a few nights at a campsite before moving up to San Francisco for a few days. We then moved down the coast to Santa Barbara before spending a few nights in San Diego where we crossed the border for a day in Mexico. We then headed up to Grand Canyon for a couple of nights camping then finished off with a couple of nights in Las Vegas. We also broke the journey tones up by having a couple of nights in roadside motels.

3 weeks is plenty we covered a hell of a lot in 3.5 weeks and didn't really need the full week in LA but wanted to chill at the beginning of our trip and have some beach time.

I think we have to stay in at least one motel type place. They are pretty iconic and I doubt we'll ever get back to that side of the states so I reckon that's a must do

We drove route 1 and planned to do it all in motel type places, but tbh some of them looked pretty shady, like the type of place you'd definitely get murdered (we watch too much TV!) so we mostly ended up in Homewood suites type hotels.

We stayed in a motel in Cambria for just one night, there were rows and rows of motel type places, but really nice ones, overlooking the ocean. Loved it!

Stopped for coffee and cake at the Madonna Inn and that was enough

Handy hint if you like tea and coffee, take/buy a kettle. All the hotels we stayed in had a coffee pod machine, but the pods provided made vile coffee, so we bought our own Starbucks pods at the local supermarket and also lugged a kettle around with us that we picked up in Walmart for making tea #britsontour

I'd recommend longer than a night in San Diego, its lovely but we rushed on so feel we could happily have stayed longer. San Fran was interesting but wouldn't go back, having done Alcatraz (we watched the movie the night before we went, which made it all the more interesting so we knew the story about the escape)

Laguna Beach was lovely, loads of boutiquey shops and galleries - I ran along the beach keeping up with a sealion who was playing in the sea!

Monterey was pretty and the aquarium was nice enough, but not the best I've ever been to. Whale watching boat trip was wonderful.

Photo is from our motel room in Cambria. One of our favourite holidays for sure. Have an amazing time.

We didn't even venture into LA even though it was on our list. From what I'd heard, it wouldn't have been for us. Wish we'd driven up and seen it from high above, but wouldn't really want to visit Hollywood etc.

My favourite national park Lassen is to the north of San Fran - it’s a big detour but it’s a fabulous volcanic landscape if you like boiling mud and fumaroles.

@ContinuityError I also lived up by Lassen in Plumas County. Such a beautiful areas and so different to the rest of California. When I explained it back to people in England they couldnt believe I was talking about California as they just see it as sun and surf! Lake Tahoe is beautiful any time of year. Brilliant skiing and in the summer excellent mountain bike trails and swimming in the lake.

Had a great time but there's a lack Of history

Came back pregnant. Millions of memories.

Particularly liked La Jolla beach

Rented a sports car and drove down the coast... really loved Muir Woods too.

We went to a vineyard which was great. Also did Jet Skiing, water park. Hiked. The gardens in San Diego are just stunning (Japanese one particularly)

Very good food in gas lamp district in San Diego

Monterey was fun for the day too

I would also say to fly to San Fran and then drive towards LA

It takes about 3 hours to drive back up I think from LA to San Fran

Make sure you get a damage waiver on the car there.

Amazing trip - very jealous! We did the Pacific Coast Highway Drive for our honeymoon. We went from SF to LA on the recommendation of our travel agent - driving north to south means you are on the right side of the road for the views. We did it in a week but that was far too rushed. Stopped in Monterey (which I liked, but one night was plenty), then Santa Barbara (LOVED it - two nights there), then onto LA. I would recommend another stop between Monterey and Santa Barbara I think. We did the 17-mile Drive which was great; Carmel (v cute town); mission at Sam Luis Obispo; and all the standard sights along the way (Bixby Bridge, Big Sur etc).

I wasn’t very keen on SF overall, but did like Alcatraz and Sausalito. We had great food and drink there too. We spent little to no time really in LA, but did drive Mulholland Drive which was great, and stayed in the Roosevelt and went to one of their pool parties which was an eye-opener. Hollywood is grimy in general, though, as people say.

Oh - one car hire tip: it might seem like the ultimate fantasy fulfilment, but don’t hire a convertible. We hired a Mustang convertible which was brilliant for photos but it was far too hot and sunny to drive with the top down about 95% of the time. Total waste.

We stayed in grim air bnb had to book hotels instead of every single one of them except the one in Monterey

The two of us sounded about 20k

Back in the day when we had loads of money 😭

Don't stay in the tenderloin part of San Fran

There's a lot of social issues I was terrified

Drug use very prevalent
A police officer advised us to leave our air bnb we booked in San Fran

@MissLLM - we nearly got married on Lake Tahoe but it was late October and the threat of snow scuppered us getting married on the paddle boat - got married in a heat wave in San Fran instead. I still find it slightly incredible that you can ski in the morning and spend the afternoon on the beach in Ca.

Lassen is one of my favourite places (but I am a geologist). Even in July it’s quiet and there are some great hikes.

Make sure you get a damage waiver on the car there

Seem to remember if that booking from the UK there was no insurance excess on a hire car booked in California? We booked through RentalCars and had a zero excess.

Oh I’d forgotten about Monterrey!

@RUSU92 wow. What a view. I'll defo check out that area for a motel stay.

I can't thank everyone enough... Loads of ideas and tips. I feel more assured now that we can do this. I appreciate how lucky we are to do this but it is literally once in a life time and it's a daunting task to organise... I don't want to mess it up. So your ideas and advice really are so much appreciated.

Don't stay in the tenderloin part of San Fran Yes! We accidentally wandered into this area looking for an amazing bakery. It was quite scary. Ended up hiding in a foreign exchange shop calling an Uber to rescue us!

We're going this summer. Flying into SF and staying there for 3 days and then driving down to LA via Monteray and somewhere else. Flying out of LA. 11 nights.
It worked out cheaper to book the flights, SF hotel and car (pick up as we leave SF and drop off at LAX 8 days later) as a package from BA holidays than to just book flight through them- I think the hotel and car cost us about £400 in all.
Other hotels I've booked through Airbnb (LA) and I've booked a couple of Crowne Plazas on the route down.

If you are driving down the coast, allow for a quick stop off at Nepenthe.
Interesting gift shop and the most amazing roof terrace with ocean views. Great for a coffee - or brunch if you aren't pressed for time.

www.nepenthe.com/

They have a live webcam, but obviously it is the middle of the night at the moment.

DS & GF went to California for a couple of weeks in July. They flew to Burbank rather than LAX. He said it was the best choice they made; much quieter and easier.

Doesn’t Burbank only handle domestic flights?

3 weeks is a nice long time. I've not rtft so apologies for any repeats.
We did similar.
My tips

1. Check flights to Oakland rather than San Francisco. We saved hundreds of pounds by doing this and it's like flying to Gatwick rather than Heathrow.
2. We used Enterprise car hire. Was absolutely great. We got asked if we wanted to pay extra when we arrived for roadside assistance. Dh didn't want to but we did and it was really useful as we did have a tyre go on the freeway.
3. We drove to Yosemite (amazing), the Death Valley (amazing), Vegas (not my thing), Hoover Dam (ok but so insanely hot), Grand Canyon.
4. the best thing we did was drive North of GC to Bryce and visit a slot canyon. There are loads of super touristy ones you need to book in advance. We went to a little one called Waterhole Canyon and it was truly amazing. Didn't book in advance. If you can face the extra drive it's worth it.
5. We booked motels before we left the UK and planned some downtime. Even with all of that it felt quite relaxed. We booked motels with pools which was great.
6. We had 4 people (youngest 13) and paid less in total than your worst estimation - just over £10k for all of us.
7. Try and fly home from another city so you don't have to retrace. Look at flights out of Utah or Arizona. It's easy to drop the car in another city/state.

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