California road trip help

[TheLastofThem]

Please tell me if you think this is doable in 15 nights or too much. Family of 4 - 13 and 10 year old... hiring a campervan travelling in April.

Timings are approximate but what google maps tells me...

Part of highway 1 - pacific highway coast is closed due to a landslide and no sign of opening any time soon so we will have to skip a lot out and go from Monterey inland down to Morro Bay.... will stop en route at other places as well as these but this is stayovers.

Are we missing anything major? Having second thoughts about whether to do Vegas with the kids but thought we'd check it out seeing as we are close by... is it too much in two weeks?
Any advice grateful. Thanks.

15 night - Route

3 nights San Fran
2.5hr drive to
2nights Monterey and big sur
3 hour drive to
1 night Morro bay/pismo beach
2h30 min drive to
2 nights LA
2h30m drive to
1 night Palm Springs / Joshua tree
3h40m drive to
2 nights vegas
1h50m drive to
1 night Death Valley
3h10m drive to
1 night mammoth lakes
2h 15m drive to
2 nights Bodie state national and Yosemite
3h30 drive back to San Fran

Will hopefully stop at Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Malibu and other little stops for food and quick visits en route.

Not sure if this helps you decide whether it's too much (i don't think it is) but we're recently back from a Cali road trip, had a 7yr old with us, this was our trip (hire car, stayed in hotels).

Sun 13 fly to San Fran, collect car, arrive Monterey early evening
Mon 14 Monterey (Boat trip/wander round Monterey)
Tue 15 left Monterey after breakfast / drove to Santa Barbara (drove to road closure on Big Sur then back up, drove in land with a break at Pismo Beach for an hour.
Wed 16 Santa Barbara (parked at the water front, explored the main streets, went to the courthouse to the clock tower, stunning views)
Thu 17 left Santa Barbara AM, drove to Sequoia
Fri 18 Sequoia
Sat 19 Sequoia
Sun 20 left Sequoia AM drove to Yosemite
Mon 21 Yosemite
Tue 22 Yosemite
Wed 23 left Yosemite AM drove to Mammoth Lakes
Thu 24 Mammoth Lakes
Fri 25 left Mammoth AM drove to South Lake Tahoe
Sat 26 South Lake Tahoe
Sun 27 South Lake Tahoe
Mon 28 left South Lake Tahoe mid morning, drove to Burlingame just outside SF airport (tough drive going via Sacramento, roads v busy so can be stressful)
Tue 29 Fly home PM

You will need to go via the Tioga Pass to get from Mammoth to Yosemite and that may well not be open in April.

https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/tioga.htm

I'd do 2 nights yosemite and maybe add another day in Palm Springs, it's kind of cool and also you can do washing etc. I love Yosemite though.

Vegas...I'm on the fence about, we did Vegas with teenagers, and there was some much of it that just wasn't appropriate for them and honestly it's kind of fun to look at for a couple of days...but ...there are other places.

Things they liked in Vegas were the Area 51 Musuem, Hoover Dam, shooting guns (not me them urgh), having a look at the casinos - but it was hot to walk round. There are lots of hookers, drugs etc...it's not bother as such but not great to explain to kids.

2 nights in LA - pick your spot - Santa Monica gets good feedback here but not so much recently. We found driving in LA awful - it took forever to get anywhere.

Yes, I got caught by that a few years ago (been to Yosemite 3 times) and it was a very long way round!

@BarrelOfOtters snap, we had to go via South Lake Tahoe 🙈

We went in August this year and the Tioga pass hadn't been opened long when we got there, i think it opened end July due to such bad snow damage over winter.

We did a two week road trip in August. Not quite the same but the main thing I found was that whenever we were driving somewhere, we ended up adding in stop off points along the way which changed the feel of the holiday a little. It definitely felt like a road trip as (for example) we left Yosemite to travel to Monterey via Mariposa Grove so it was late afternoon when we arrived. Other times we left early to get a full day eg Santa Barbara to West Hollywood. So it sort of changes how you look at the number of days/nights in each place.

is there a reason you’re staying in Death Valley? It is a long drive from Las Vegas through Death Valley ( I did this many years ago) but not sure about staying there (there are probably a lot more facilities now). On my first trip to California, I did SF - LA - Las Vegas - Yosemite - Lake Tahoe in two weeks and it was too much. And I was 29!

hope that helps

Thanks for advice.... we are debating about avoiding vegas and Death Valley and doing Sequoia instead but thought it might be similar to Yosemite and seems a shame to miss vegas when we're so close! Thought we could maybe see a show.

We thought Death Valley to break up the journey to mammoth lakes / Yosemite... but have heard some rental vans have restrictions on going there because of the heat?? Not sure about if that's the case in April....

Have considered San Diego instead of Vegas but then longer drives up to Yosemite...?

Mammoth will also still be ski season.
Yosemite could very likely have road closures at high ground such as Glacier Point

I'd say you are missing San Diego, but that's just a personal preference, I don't like San Francisco and would happily ditch that - but am aware that is probably an unpopular opinion!

Yikes. Naively did not think about snow! Will have to pack for all weather and book a hotel for here instead of staying in the campervan!

Tioga pass will definitely be closed. It usually opens early to mid June. The Sonora pass will not be open either - that’s usually end of May. I had to use the Sonora once unexpectedly and it added about 2 hours to our journey, so you’ll need much more time than that.

I think you have too much driving and your timings are a bit optimistic, especially as you’ll want to stop for views/food. I drove from South Las Vegas to Furnace Creek a couple of months ago and it took 2 hours non stop with no traffic and going at the speed limit, for example.

Palm Springs is more than an hour from the Joshua Tree entry station so if you are really going to try to do LA to Las Vegas with an overnight in between I’d forget Palm Springs and just stay over in Twentynine Palms. Or forget Vegas and have two or three nights in Palm Desert before heading off up the West of the Sierra Nevada to Yosemite.

Definitely plan for all weathers!

I absolutely love San Diego and think it would be brilliant with kids.

Yosemite will be limited if there is snow, it'll be beautiful but the higher stuff is likely to be shut.

Death valley - we stayed in the lodge there and it was kind of fun, but check on restrictions for camper vans and make sure you have lots of water and food with you. A bunch of people turned up at the lodge when we were just finishing our dinner expecting to eat and they'd shut the kitchen.

Sequoia and Yosemite are very different.

We were supposed to have snow tyres to get into yosemite - but didn't and no one checked.

We were lucky and did the Tioga pass the day after it opened in the first week of June... it promptly closed again 2 days later! So v v unlikely in April I'd say.

That feels like far too much driving to me - both in terms of the distances and the number of days on which you have a long drive.

Sequoia and Yosemite are very different (but also a decent distance apart from each other).

I'm just back from a three week RV trip from vegas round Southern Utah and have done a lot of them.

Generally I'd try to limit one night stops - much nicer to be able to stay somewhere for 2 nights. It means you can get to campsite later in the day, plan next days activities and then get anything you missed fitted in on the following day before pottering off - or allows for a long leisurely drive with lots of stop offs.

Don't ever go too far on the first night in case there is an issue with your vehicle and you need to go back (we realised we had a window missing once). Plus you can't normally collect until after midday, then you need to go shopping and load up vehicle. Also you have to return vehicles clean and empty - usually by 10am. So the last stop should be within a 30min drive of wherever you got the vehicle from.

Oh and don't know where you are hiring from but ask them for 2 duvets each as it will be cold.

If you are getting an RV rather than camper I can send you some tips! Also I really recommend Road Bear for rentals.

I’m over-invested in your holiday now, and more than a little envious…

What are your must-dos and must-sees? Are you hikers or viewpoint visitors? Shoppers? Nature enthusiasts? What do you want to do in San Francisco and LA? I’m not sure whether driving an RV around the cities is going to be any fun, but you may have nerves of steel 🙂

We did a california road trip staying in hotels and hiring a car with teenage son. We flew into San Fransico for 3 nights then picked up hire car and drove to Yosemite for a couple of nights. Then we went to Monteray for another couple of nights and then 2 nights in pismo beach before finishing up in San Diego for 3 nights where we flew out of. Didn't really know what to expect from SanDiego but it was amazing and would love to go back to spend more time there as so much to do. Pacific Highway was open when we did this and it was in July so no issues at Yosemite. Didn't really rate Pismo beach to be honest. Weather wasn't as warm as we had hoped when we were there which didn't help.

Haha... thanks for your support in planning' I'm feeling pretty nervous about the cities...

We are staying in a hotel in San Fran and picking up the RV after the hotel stay....planning on booking Alcatraz, hiring bikes and cycling over golden gate...

Considering an RV campground in Malibu on the beach and we may Uber everywhere in LA whilst we're there! The kids definitely want to do Universal in LA...

We're not massive hikers but are fairly fit so want to do some trails but nothing too crazy!

Love the beach but realise we may be going the wrong time of year for swimming, but open to a cold water swim....

Want to see the red woods and sequoias....

It's exciting but daunting! Want to see everything but also worried we will be travelling too much.

Don’t miss Hearst Castle. We did this from Pismo Beach.

Just know that those drive times are optimistic. Not impossible, but just as likely to double or triple on some legs with traffic.

Just off the top of my head, I'd do Sequoia NP instead of Vegas any day, and Lassen state park is worth a visit too.

Yeah. I realised I was checking the routes at 5am USA time so would be very optimistic.

I went to Yosemite in April a good few years ago and there was quite heavy snow. It’s a requirement to carry snow chains (we hired them somewhere) and the park wardens made us put them on.

the LA area is massive, malibu to universal would take about 1 hr drive before any traffic plus you could end up spending a small fortune on ubers

Renting an RV will also slow you down somewhat. We were thinking of doing so but were advised by many on Tripadvisor against it. We had a 4x4 instead and stayed in a mixture of nice hotels and budget motels.