ROAD TRIP - San Francisco to Las Vegas in 1 week

You are limited for time and trying to cram in far too much in your first post in my opinion but as Michael has explained, it's all about meeting your own goals. With the distances involved and having a little time to enjoy yourselves, I would think along the lines of; 25th and 26th] Explore SF. 27th] Drive to Yosemite and explore a little. 28th] Explore a little more of Yosemite and drive over Tioga pass [CA120]. Expect to take your time, you will be driving across the Sierra Nevada mountains and the stops/viewpoints are breath taking. Spend the night around Bishop on 395. 29th] Continue to Death Valley [Mount Whitney?] and into Death valley for the night. 30th] Vegas. 1st and 2nd Oct] Drive to South rim and meet friends or Sedona and then Grand canyon. 3rd] Phoenix and flight back.

Of course it is for you to do your own planning but you will be surprised how busy that will keep you, but at least give you some time to enjoy where you are going.

Southwest Dave,

Is it possible to drive from SF to wine country (napa, etc) and stay one night, then head to Lake Tahoe for one night and Yosemite for one night? How many hours does it take from SF to wine country/napa. etc then to lake tahoe and Yosemite.

How do you advise I do this trip?

Yes it is possible, as long as you understand that you are not going to have much time at the places you visit. Perhaps you could leave SF a little late on day 2 and take the short drive to Napa. The only thing that is important is how you want to do your trip, but I already offered my opinion above.

I have outlined a route in the map below use the zoom/left @right tools in the top left corner of map. You can create your own map on Google maps and check travel times, but add at least 20% to there estimates and then sight seeing on top of that. From Napa to South lake Tahoe I would allow 3.5 to 4 hours and 5 hours to get into Yosemite valley.

Remember it is not the route I am suggesting, just a guide for you to follow.



Do a little research and play with the map a little and then decide on your final itinerary. We will be happy to look over it and make suggestions if there is a way to improve or fine tune it, but now it's time for you to consider the advice already given and decide how and where you would like to spend your time.

Enjoy the planning, it is a great part of the adventure !

Thanks so much South West Dave!

So far, I agree with you. We will do SF (2 nt) - Napa (1nt) - South Lake Tahoe (1 nt) - Yosemite (1nt) - Death Valley

My dilemma really starts after this because I want to see places on the west and east of the sierra mountains on our travel from Yosemite to Death Valley. Especially Lake Mono, Bodie, Seqoia/Mt Whitney, Devils Postpile, Mammoth Lakes, King Canyon and finally Death Valley. Which on these locations can we manage seeing in one day if we left Yosemite in the am and reached DV in the late evening after sun set. This is the main confusion and we want to make the BEST. Please let me know what you think

The next whole day we spend in DV and late afternoon/early evening our plan was to head to Vegas and the fly to PHX (because ours friends were going to take us to GC and Sedona), but Michael said that it makes no sense to do that because we could easily just drive to South Rim of Grand Canyon in the same amount of time (waiting at airport, etc). In this case our friends from PHX would come meet us in GC and we could all spend the night there, next morning see GC and Sedona and drive back to PHX. The other reason also to fly to PHX from Vegas is so we don't get too tired if the drive to GC is too far.

Let me know what you think! Thanks for the map!

You just haven't got the time.

Bodie would be in breach of your rental agreement as the drive is partly unpaved, and it could easily take half a day for the drive and a quick look around. Sequoia and Kings canyon alone could not be visited in one day including a trip that starts in Yosemite and ends in Death Valley. That really leaves Mono Lake and Mammoth lakes and a view of Mt Whitney from Lone Pine on route to Death valley via Tioga pass, and even that is not going to leave you much time in Yosemite and to explore Tioga. That is plenty to do in a day, and in my opinion the "best" option with the time you have. Trying to do more will take away the pleasure of enjoying the trip, it would be too rushed.

I totally agree [as in my earlier post] that you should drive to the Grand canyon.

How long is the drive from Death Valley to South Rim GC?

Ok, I will consider Mono Lake, Mammoth Lakes, Mt. Whitney onroute to Death Value via Tioga Pass. What time shall we start off from Yosemite? My only concern, we will be driving from South Lake Tahoe to Yosemite and I wonder if this route will be very similar in scenary to the one we do from Yosemite to Death Valley - am I correct here?

Also, since we have the previous day in Yosemite as well - how do you think we should plan to see the main highlights with my parents?

I'm sorry, but this has been said repeatedly now, you are really underestimating the size of the area you are talking about covering. Your current plans having you spending most of the day driving from Tahoe to Yosemite and then all of the next day from Yosemite back across the Sierras again to Death Valley.

We can't tell you what time to leave and how exactly to schedule your day - as we've said repeatedly now you need to figure out for yourself how you want to divide up your time. However, we have now also told you on several occasions that you are really pushing the envelope in terms of having days where you are on the brink of doing too much - and when you consider that you are traveling with senior citizens, are you really going to want to be spending 8-10 hours on the road nearly every day? That's pretty much what you've told us you're planning to do so far.

Death Valley to the South Rim should take 7-8 hours on the road, depending upon the exact route you chose.

I really think we are at the point where you need to slow down, and reconsider all of the advice you've been given so far, and then come up with your own plan that takes into account the large amount of advice you've been given so far, a good examination of a map, as well as the massive amount of other information in the other threads that you've been pointed towards.

For that reason, I am closing this thread temporarily. It will be reopened again in a couple days, and at that time, we look forward to hearing about the revised plans that you have come up with. And of course, after you've done that, if you still have a few questions that we haven't gone over you'll be free to ask them at that time.

My husband and I are going for a road trip in the end of Sept and will be driving from SF to Vegas with a few 1 night stops on route and needed recommendation for nice places to spend the night. We'd be open to separate rooms in hotels or villa/apartment type places which include 2 rooms under one roof.

Can you please recommend good places (reasonably prices yet nice) in San Francisco, Napa Valley, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite and Death Valley?

With only a few regular contributors to the site and choices from thousands of lodgings it is often the case that you won't get much of a response on actual lodgings to stay in and sites like trip advisor might be a better port of call. However, do some searching around the Internet first to get a feel of options and prices and use your "gut feeling" it doesn't usually let me down.

In San Fran the charges for parking your car can be quite expensive, even at the Hotel you are staying in. You can pay a premium in City centre Hotels but Lombard Street has some reasonable priced lodgings and some are inclusive of parking and not to far from the Piers and public transport [cable cars] into the City. We stayed at the Buena vista motor Inn that was clean and tidy [at least it was in 2007]and although pretty basic and not much in the way of breakfast, was good value with free parking.
[Although check that this is still the case]. For "nice" and good value your other option would be an airport Hotel with a free shuttle bus system to the airport where you can use the BART rail system to downtown. It's a cheap, efficient system that gets you to the City in a relatively short time, but perhaps not ideal.

There is a good choice of lodgings in and around Yosemite and these are a few of them. Although I haven't stayed there the Hotel Charlotte B&B in Groveland looked quaint, and another option not listed above, is the Rustic lodgings at the Yosemite bug.


There are limited lodging options in Death valley at Panamint Springs, Stovepipe Wells and Furnace creek or look at surrounding areas such as Lone Pine, Shoshone etc.