Anyone done a California road trip?

[Imonlysaying]

Morning! Just looking for tips really. What are the must-sees and best routes. It’s all a bit confusing! Thanks 🙏

If it works with your itinerary (which I realise you don't have yet!) a night at the Madonna Inn is highly recommended.

https://www.madonnainn.com/

LA is massive though. Santa Monica beach was lovely. A drive on Mullholland drive is memorable but a bit scary! And the Griffith observatory is a must-see for many. Wasn't keen on Hollywood.
LA good for sports if you're into that.

I’ve only done southern half of Cali like this- flew into San Diego and worked upwards as far as monterrey

10/11 days is very tight for a driving trip of CA, but if Yosemite is a must, then I would fly to San Francisco. It's a long flight and you'll be tired when you arrive, so I advise staying either near the airport or in San Francisco the first night. I like SF and think it's worth a few days, but if you don't want to do cities you could leave the following day. Lake Tahoe is stunning, but it's a long day's drive from Yosemite, so you need to want to go there. It's a glacial lake with lovely hiking and water sports - is that you kind of thing?

A sample itinerary could be:

Fly to SF
1 night SF
3 nights Lake Tahoe
3 nights Yosemite
3 nights Monterey (allowing you to drive down the Pacific Coast Highway a bit)
Fly home from SF

Or:

Fly to SF
2 nights SF
3 nights Yosemite
2 nights Monterey
2 nights Big Sur
1 night Santa Cruz
Fly home from SF

You are all stars! Thank you so much. I should have said, we are planning on going THIS September!! I know, left it late. Am still finding availability in Yosemite at the moment. Think we will avoid Big Sur given the problems there. I am going to keep it simple given our time restraints and hope to go back for what we’ve missed.

We went in September and had great weather. Have fun!

So exciting to be planning a last minute trip!

My daughter was looking forward to LA but it was awful. We stayed in Santa Monica, which was lovely, and got the big bus tour into LA, enjoyed the celebrity homes tour, but we went straight back to Santa Monica and didn’t go back into LA. Sadly there is a massive homeless problem everywhere we went. I did feel unsafe a few times in a few places. The drive in from Santa Barbara was sad as we went through Malibu, which is totally destroyed.

my favourite place was Carmel by sea. If you go to Monterey it’s worth a visit, but sadly with route 1 being closed, it’s out of the way otherwise.

Definitely avoid Big Sur. There is no plan for it to reopen and there’s no diversion so you need to go down route 101 instead. My daughter really wanted to go but it was a terrible waste of time and 2 hours out of the way. The fog came in and we basically turned round and went back the same way.

LA is vast and horrible, takes hours to drive around. Santa Monica and Santa Barbara are fine for a visit but nothing really unique. Death Valley was great. Have been to Yosemite twice and haven't get seen the Tuolumne meadows area, once because jt was thick fire, and once due to wildfires. There aren't many roads around Yosemite be really careful with route planning.
Loved San Fran, Monterrey, Carmel.
Our other favourite is a few days in Las Vegas then drive round the national parks (Bruce Canyon, amazing, Zion, Grand Canyon etc) So you could keep LV for a future trip.

Yes a few times. Do a one way car rental and either fly in and out some here different or get an internal flight and work your way back. It is very expensive now compared to pre covid.

Death valley was our highlight- part of a longer trip than yours. Las Vegas is must see but only for a night, its jaw dropping but appalling.

Lake Tahoe if you have time is stunning. Mammoth Lakes are also beautiful but might be a bit far with your timeline. If you’re looking to stay in motels etc and are planning to be in the San Francisco area I can recommend Walnut Creek which is a very pretty little town. If you’re staying near Yosemite I can say from experience please please avoid Merced. We thought it might be an ideal spot lane to stop for a night on our road trip and it was terrifying. Found out later that it’s the crystal meth capital of Cali 🤦‍♀️! Hope you have a great trip

I drove the full west cost of the USA, top to bottom. It was the best holiday I have ever had.

California especially, make sure you see the redwoods, they really are incomprehensibly large, it’s an incredible place like nowhere I have ever been.

Yosemite was lovely, did a couple of days there and fully recommend. Our group did camping in some spots, which felt nice and a bit closer to nature.

I recommend around Santa Barbara staying somewhere in the mountains as the night sky is beautiful, you can see the Milky Way and maybe catch a shooting star (mind the tarantulas!!).

My trip ended in San Diego, which was my favourite city to visit and one that people often miss since many go straight from LA to Vegas. Coronado beach in SD is gorgeous, the sand literally glitters. You can also spot the US Navy aircraft on sorties which is a bit niche, but worth a mention 😊

Enjoy yourselves! I am envious!

If you are looking for somewhere to stay near (but not in) Yosemite, then I can highly recommend this place https://blackberry-inn.com/. It's about 20 minute drive from the entrance, and it is a blissful place to stay, with great, friendly service and a beautiful location in its own right. The chap who owns it has loads of recommendations outside the park as well if you have the time to spend exploring. It's one of those places I really hope we get the chance to go back to.

@Raquelos the BlackBerry Inn is available!! Going to book. Thankyou

We did this 2 years ago and had such an amazing time!

We did the following:

San Francisco - 2 nights
Monterey - 1 night (after spending the day driving down the 1 to Big Sur and back up)
Yosemite - 2 nights (could have done longer, we absolutely loved it!)
Then it was supposed to be Death Valley for a night but typically that year the snow had been so bad that in late June the Tioga pass was still closed. So we ended up doing a random motel at Bakersfield to break up the drive to Vegas.
Las Vegas - 2 nights (we also eloped and got married whilst there)
Grand Canyon (south rim) - 2 nights
Lake Havasu - 1 night
San Diego - 3 nights

This

i have done this route and it was lovely. Mind you there are lots of hills and curves as they call them in the US to navigate from Monteray down the coast through the big sur.

Also to add I really do recommend getting NP accommodation in Yosemite Valley if you can. I sat refreshing that page so much and got the lodge about a week before we went. It was amazing to be in the valley once the day time crowds were gone, so peaceful.

Went to Yosemite and its v essy to underestimate its sheer size and it took ages to drive to the camp site there, we were lulled by the smell of food but when we got there the cafe was closing except for a cheese buttie.
Also we didn't lock the food store outside so a bear came scuttling past in the night which was all sorts of scary as a shadowy figure appeared large as we were under the canvas! We had to forage for pine cones in the dark using only fading car lights. Couldn't have been all bad as I came back pregnant! Lol

We did Vegas, Coachella and then up PCH via yosemite to San Fransisco for our honeymoon some years ago now.
Highlights were
Santa barbara
Yosemite
Sonoma (most of my trips have a focus on vineyards at some point! Preferred Sonoma to Napa Valley)
San Francisco is a must and not just because it'll likely be where you're best flying into/out of.

Yosemite was spectacular scenery wise but we didn't fancy staying overnight in the park and it's difficult to find good value places around the area. It was 12 years ago though so things may well have changed!

I think the main thing to bear in mind is that 3-4hrs driving may seem a lot by UK standards but it's almost nothing in the US. You won't get far for your 11 days on that. Will you both be driving?

We did 4 nights in Vegas, 2 in LA, 2 in Monterey, 2 in Yosemite, 2 in Napa and 3 in San Fran. I didn't like San Fran so much but I am the only person I've come across who didn't. Yosemite was amazing but just so so big. We went up Glacier Point which was stunning. Monterey we liked. Went whale watching and great fish and seafood. Napa wine tasting was really good too. If you're interested in wine tasting we did it with Platypus Tours as they do small tours. It was just us and 4 other couples. LA wouldn't do again, nothing special there. We flew into LV and out of SF.

Oh and Joshua Tree/Mojave is also amazing.

If you have limited time, omit San Francisco unless useful for flight there/ home. Insalubrious now.

Santa Barbara and Carmel absolutely gorgeous on that coast. Lone Pine ( overnight stop) on way from Yosemite to Las Vegas surpringly stunning because of mountain vistas. Las Vegas can be fun but handy anyway for Grand Canyon etc.

But maybe you’d prefer the wine country instead?

Main routes through Yosemite are closed from about end Oct to June.

We did Oregon/California in September a few years back. The weather was great but be aware that it’s also wildfire season. And when it burns there, it burns. We had to change our route as the area we were planning on visiting was on fire. I remember driving down a highway with the forest smoldering on both sides. We got out of the car and there were ashes falling all over us. May husband got a lung infection as a result. I remember we drove through some town and a few weeks later we saw it on the news that it had burnt down. Scary stuff.

Yosemite gets a few fires every year. You might need to make a reservation for Yosemite. A lot of parks now have crowd control measures in place.

Muir Woods north of SF have redwoods, I highly recommend visiting the park.