Help Portland to San Francisco

[Ashleym92]

So me and my sister are planning to do a big trip to San Francisco. The thing is I used to drive for a living and want to show my sister some of the sites. I was thinking about going down I5 and cutting over at grants pass to crescent city and then all the way down highway 101. My only concern is how long it will actually take. I have gone to crescent city but not down south from there. I need to know roughly what time it would take to drive this because I know HWY 101 is curvy and slower. We plan on leaving Oregon early early early and trying to get there and still have time to see fishermans wharf. Being that I do live in Portland and go to cannon beach or Newport yearly I am not worried about seeing those. But I am kind of wondering about cutting over by Florence. We will probably stop a few times a long the way at least to get out and look at the ocean. I really was hoping if we left by 2am we would hit the redwoods right during sunrise and then be to San Francisco no later than 5pm. My question is am I not planning enough time and should I either add and extra day, try to just push through faster, or take I5. I want to see the pretty parts of the ocean and have always wanted to drive down 101. Also should I stay on 101 and go straight down or go onto highway 1? Any help would be great.

[Southwest Dave]

Hello and welcome to RTA !

No doubt about it, add another day as it's the only way you are going to see anything and make it a nice trip for your sister rather than a tiresome slog.

[glc]

If you are willing to make this a full 2 day trip, I'd take I-5/US-199/US-101/CA-1. You need to make it as far down 101 as you can before spending the night - at least as far as Eureka, Garberville would be ideal. I would highly recommend the Avenue of the Giants (old 101, now CA-254) through Humboldt Redwoods State Park. Another good road through the redwoods would be old 101 through Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.

Note that CA-1 is pretty slow going, it will take you most of the day to get from Leggett to SF. It's only about 225 miles but there are a lot of towns and winding sections.

If you must do this in 1 day, you have no choice except I-5 all the way to I-80, and even that is over 600 miles and as such not recommended in 1 day.