Please talk to me about California ...

[zafferana]

We're planning to go to California for 14 nights in summer 2021. Our two boys will be 13 and 10. I haven't been to CA for a while and we've never taken our DC, although they're familiar with the east coast. This is our itinerary and we'll by flying to/from San Francisco:

San Francisco and Marin County (3 nights)
Yosemite (2 nights)
Death Valley (1 night)
Santa Monica/Venice Beach for visiting LA (4 nights)
Pismo Beach/Morro Bay (1 night)
Monterey (2 nights)
San Francisco (1 night)

Our boys are into hiking and just being outdoors (particularly DS1) and messing about in the pool/on the beach (DS2). Hopefully I've included enough of both to keep them happy. We have a friend in LA who we'll want to visit for one of the day and otherwise I want the second week to be quite relaxed and include plenty of beach, wildlife watching and relaxing time.

Would they enjoy Alcatraz, do you think? I will book in plenty of time, if so. I've never been, so I'm not sure. TIA.

If you’re into hiking I’d do 3 nights in Yosemite, that gives you 2 full days and it’s so beautiful you’ll want to stay longer. My two aged 14 and 11 found Alcatraz really interesting, so definitely book that up early. That’s a lot of driving to do in 2 weeks I’d say.

That’s around 1300 miles of driving in 2 weeks. Even we wouldn’t do that and we regularly go back to California as DH was born there (we live in a different state now). Plus it will be hot. That makes for very uncomfortable driving. We drive at night when we go to California. Why are you going back up to San Francisco? It would make far more sense to open-jaw into SFO and back from LAX.

I would take Death Valley out of the there - it will be far too hot at that time of year to get out of the car

Are you set on Yosemite? You are adding a lot of miles to do this. You are going to spend most of your time stuck in cars

Why not drive down highway 1 - it's much better if you want to stop off and take photos than coming up

Then go to some of the national parks near LA, that are also stunning

Have you considered Disney?

Also fly in to SFO and out of LAX

I would also come the 2nd half of August when the kids here are back at school

We just came back from doing a very similar tour with 3 kids 8, 11, 13.

Also flew in/out SF (much more expensive to fly in to SF out of LV (in our case)). We did 4 nights SF, 2 nights Yosemite, 4 nights LA (Santa Monica), 3 nights Las Vegas, 2 nights Monterey. We had an awesome time. It was a lot of driving, but CA is big and we wanted to see those places and LV.

What I would say though, is that we felt like (with the exception of SF, where our hotel location seriously impacted on enjoyment of the city) we only scratched the surface of the places.

2 nights in Yosemite and Monterey translates into one day there really due to the drive. LA we could’ve stayed a week and would still come away feeling we didn’t see enough. Same with Vegas.

It was a fab hol though. Children loved it. Mightily expensive though but one thing I realise now is that good organisation wins the day on these hols. We aren’t that good at planning/booking in advance and as a consequence, paid almost top dollar (I searched for discounts etc. when there) for a lot of things we did.

Warner Brothers studio tour in LA is fabulous!

Honestly, I would drive up Highway One-towards San Francisco as it is less scary than driving south and being in the outside lane. Fall/Autumn or Spring would be more pleasant.

We are in Santa Monica right now. Do NOT book a accommondation at Venice Beach, it is really rough and full of homeless tents.

We hired bikes this morning and cycled there and back and whilst that was fine, I really wouldn’t want to stay there with kids, and nevermind at dark.

Santa Monica so far looks fun, it’s very busy though, like being in central London. Luckily we’re here sun-thu, I’d hate to think how crowded it is during the weekend.

We did California with our 2DC (14 and 12). We did SF for a few days then a few days driving down highway 1 to San Diego. Not sure about driving distances to parks but am sure plenty places to see. Def recommend Alcatraz. My 2 loved it. Make a detour to San Luis Obispo if you get to pismo beach. Very cool town.

Wow - thank you! Lots of really good info while I've been asleep

I know it's lots of driving, but we want to see a lot. It's so far and so expensive to do a trip to the west coast US and god knows if I'll ever drag DH back (he's much more interested in holidaying in Europe than the US).

Yes, we definitely want to go to Yosemite - DH is American and he's never been and has always wanted to go. The DC will love it too. DS1 loves the great outdoors. Bit concerned about bears though ....

Good point about Death Valley - I was thinking last night as I lay in bed 'Could be rather hot in July' myself! So, in that case we could drive direct from Yosemite to Monterey and then head down the PCH from there.

No, we don't want to do Disney. We've been to both Disney World in Orlando and Disneyland in Paris, so Walt ain't getting any more of our money! I'll consider the WB Tour though and I will book Alcatraz.

Good tip about going in August instead of July - DH would probably prefer that as August is always dead at work. As long as it's within the school summer holidays it doesn't matter to me when we go.

So, revised itinerary:
San Francisco (3 nights)
Sonoma (1 night)
Yosemite (3 nights)
Monterey/Carmel (3 nights)
Pismo Beach/Morro Bay (1 night)
LA (3 nights)

If Santa Monica is really busy does anyone have a good tip of a nice, quiet, but not too far out area where we could stay in LA. Our friend lives in the Hollywood Hills, so that side of things would be good.

Or we could do the whole thing in reverse if Highway 1 is so scary!

Another question: what is there to do in Monterey that we need two whole days for?

I’d only do Monterey for 2 nights, it’s lovely and the aquarium is fantastic, but 2 nights is enough

Monteray Bay Aquarium is worth a look if you want a more chilled out day

Definitely Alcatraz, highlight for our boys. Needs to be booked quite a long way in advance.

OMG just looked at flights for next Aug as a rough estimate

When is the best time to get the best price on flights - when they come out? Virgin is currently £1600 less than BA - is that normal?

You should do Santa Cruz in the 3 days you've blocked for Monterey and Carmel. Boardwalk and lots of state parks and beaches.

We’ve booked a similar trip for next year. We are doing 3 nights SF, 2 in Monterey, 2 in Santa Barbara, 3 in San Diego then travelling up to LA to fly to Miami for 4 nights. I think it’s going to be full on but we will just do plenty of stops & like you, we want to see as much as we can. Fortunately our kids are decent travellers. I discounted Death Valley on the heat factor. If it was without kids I would probably do it but im not sure what they would have got out of it. If you are on Facebook there’s a great page called California Dreamers & West Coast Wanderers that you can join & people are really helpful on there.

We booked all of ours through trailfinders btw inc car & accommodation.

Also in Monterey they do whale watching tours

We stayed at the magic castle hotel in LA, the accommodation is quite basic but the service is fantastic. You can do brunch on a weekend at the magic castle club which is pretty cool. It's a few minutes walk from Hollywood Boulevard (Hollywood pretty rough tbh but we felt safe walking round). We left the car and got Uber everywhere. If you decide to open jaw your flights just be wary some car hire companies charge a one way drop off fee. Flight wise we find the flights to California much cheaper than to the east coast. Keep an eye on on skyscanner, google flights etc. Also booking even a nights accommodation with a flight can bring the costs down. Expedia are good for this or do a customised trip with BA, if you do a flight and a hotel or car you van book and pay a deposit so you don't have to pay in full. We used TopCashback to book hotels through and booked changeable options so if the prices came down we rebooked and cancelled the original booking. We saved quite a bit doing this.

I might look into booking through Trailfinders @Sunshine196 as they've been great in the past. All this is so helpful everyone - thank you again!

I've finessed our itinerary a bit again too, giving us a bit more time to potter down the Pacific Coast Highway at a leisurely pace and do some walks and sight-seeing. I don't think we'll need 3 nights in Monterey, but I would like one in Santa Barbara, so I'm now thinking:

San Francisco (3 nights)
Sonoma (1 night)
Yosemite (3 nights)
Monterey/Carmel (2 nights)
Pismo Beach (1 night)
Santa Barbara (1 night)
LA (3 nights)

Apart from Alcatraz, what would you recommend for kids of 10 and 13 in San Francisco and where should we stay? The first time I went, when I was 17, we stayed at Fisherman's Wharf, which was touristy, but not a bad location.

The Magic Castle Hotel looks good @moralminority! We like a bit of space, so an apartment/hotel with pool would be great. Do you remember how much it was a night?

We paid about £1000 for 3 nights in August for a 2 bed suite inc breakfast. There's no resort fee but parking is charged I think

We went whale watching in Monterey. Saw humpback whales lunge feeding. It was quite spectacular.

We didn’t do the aquarium as we’d been to the Aquarium of the Pacific in LA, so seemed like overkill. Also, to do whale watching and the aquarium for a family of 5 would’ve cost c£400!! The exchange rate is a total killer expenditure-wise at the moment.

In hindsight we would’ve preferred to stay in Monterey for longer (we had 2 nights), it has a relaxed charm, which was lovely after LV and LA.