Road Trip from Los Angeles to Vancouver, Cananda and back to LA - NEED ADVISE

Hello Everyone!

I need help in trying to figure out the best places to stop over. I have a wedding to go to in Vancouver, Canada and my husband and i want to make it into a short road trip. Our trip can only be 11 days total including time with family in Vancouver.

We would love to visit Yosemite, Crater Lake, San Francisco, Seattle, and go to must see places in Washington, Oregon, and California. We've never gone to any of these places. We're also on a really tight budget so any suggestions of where we should stop or spend the night would be great! Also our car is pretty old so we would need to make sure our car rests while we are resting overnight.

This is what we are thinking of doing but please advise on what would be the best route:

Day 1: Los Angeles to Yosemite National Park
Day 2: Yosemite to ?
Day 3: ? to Seattle, Wa
Day 4: Seattle to Vancouver, Canada
Day 5: Must be in Vancouver, Canada
Day 6: Must be in Vancouver, Canada
Day 7: Leave Vancouver and head to ?
Day 8: ?
Day 9: Must stay in San Francisco / Oakland area with family
Day 10: Must stay in San Francisco / Oakland area with family
Day 11: ? - Home to Los Angeles

Thank you so much!!

Hello and welcome to the RTA forums !

With Crater Lake on your wish list you would need to get [close] to it from Yosemite and give yourselves an hour or two the following day to take in the views before continuing to Seattle. After a little time in Yosemite you could stay the night in Groveland which will be cheaper than in Yosemite and would give you a small head start the next morning to Crater Lake.

On the way back you could stop in Portland and then perhaps near Redwood NP on the coast via Grants Pass to Crescent City before continuing to San Fran. These will be mostly long days on the road with time for a brief visit at the destinations.

Welcome aboard the RoadTrip America Forums!

Unfortunately, with the number of miles you have to drive, and the amount of time that you plan to spend in Vancouver and San Francisco, there really isn't a whole lot of time left on this trip for major sight-seeing. So the first thing I'd suggest is that you postpone visits to major time sinks such as Yosemite that really demand several days to see properly and concentrate on some smaller, more intimate, and less time consuming attractions. Maybe some of the many excellent museums and government buildings in Sacramento, a drive through California Gold Country, a visit to Napa Valley either going up or coming home, a drive on the Historic Columbia River Highway, or spending a little time on the Pacific Coast Highway. remember as well that I-5 has some major road work going on north of Seattle to repair a collapsed bridge.

Where you would stop each night would depend on where you decided to spend time on the way, but three evenly spaced days northbound would have you overnighting around Sacramento and Eugene OR. While three evenly spaced southbound days would leave you near Eugene and San Francisco at the end of your days.

AZBuck

Thanks so much Southwest Dave!
I'll definitely keep your suggestions in mind!

AZBuck thank you so much for the heads up on the collapsed bridge and for all the info!
My husband and I will reconsider what we would really like to see on our way up to Vancouver and on our way back down to LA.

We didn't consider stopping at Sacramento but now we will.
=)

The bridge has been replaced by a temporary span, it opened June 19. They are working on a permanent repair which should be done after Labor Day. At that time they will shut I-5 down again for about 2 weeks.