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The trip is going like this:
3 nights Vegas
2 nights San Diego
3 nights L.A. area
2 nights Catalina Island
3 nights San Francisco
1 night Monterey/Salinas
2 nights Carmel
1 night Napa
1 night Redding (DAY IN LAKE TAHOE)
1 night Seattle
3 nights Vancouver (1 day Whistler)
1 night Victoria
Does anyone have any suggestions in how to make this trip as romantic, adventurous, and enjoyable as possible? We are going from July 10-August 2nd so it'll be beautiful weather!!!
You are driving from Napa to Lake Tahoe to Redding all in one day???Quote:
Originally Posted by goleafs
Congratulations on the pending marriage and welcome to the Great American RoadTrip Forum! Sounds like an interesting trip. You may wish to adjust the schedule a little bit on the days shown above.Quote:
Does anyone have any suggestions in how to make this trip as romantic, adventurous,
Mark
Tahoe is gorgeous but you are going to be skipping over or zipping fast through other beautiful country in order to squeeze Tahoe in. I would skip it this trip as it's the only place on your itinerary that is out-of-the-way once you've made your way into California. Tahoe would make a lovely trip another time.
I'd suggest going from Napa up CA-1/101 to either Eureka or Crescent City. From either of those cities, you can take beautiful drives to hook back up with I-5. And this would allow you to enjoy an awesome coastal drive that rivals any other coast in the world. Yes, it's that gorgeous. And you will also be able to see some of the Redwood forests as well. Grant's Pass would make a good stop for the night.
This will also have the advantage of shortening the drive to Seattle.
Congratulations on the marriage. Best wishes.
What if I left Napa at like 6-7am and got to Tahoe around 930-10, wouldn't that leave me the whole day there? I've heard it's absolutely gorgeous and a friend who went there said it's worth going out of the way. In fact, the reason we're staying in Redding is so we can drive from Redding to Arcata on I-299 which is supposed to have stunning views, and then from there drive up to Seattle.
OK, but then you are going to drive from Lake Tahoe to Redding -- In my view that is too much driving for one day. I drove ~700 miles yesterday, so long days are not beyond my experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by goleafs
I drove SR-299 yesterday. Yes, you are going to love the canyon -- lots of rushing rivers right now. Just watch for deer -- I just about tagged one last night!
Mark
A random comment or two?Quote:
1 night Napa
1 night Redding (DAY IN LAKE TAHOE)
1 night Seattle
Napa a great, romantic place to stay. There are some very nice inns and restaurants in Calistoga or St Helena, right in the wine country. Cool...
But the next couple of days look pretty wild...
My recommendation would be to drop the Tahoe visit, and take your time up 101 over to the coast -- visit a coupe of places in Redwoods National park and vicinity, and slowly head up the coast. You'll be hard pressed to make much past Crescent City that day. Going from Redding to Tahoe to the coast again will be almost impossible, and then virtually impossible to go up along the oregon coast to Seattle in a day -- unless you cut inland and take I-5 -- and even from Redding its a long, full days' drive up I-5 to Seattle.
If you need to go from Napa to Seattle in 2 nights -- and this is your Honeymoon after all -- do Napa to Redwoods in on day, and stay around Crescent City. Then the next day do Crescent city back to I-5, and up to the Portland area. You can visit Eugene and perhaps the Oregon Wine County, or find a nice romantic spot in the Columbia Gorge (an hour or so east from Portland) to stay. Then the next day, take the 3-4 hours to get to Seattle, and take it slowly.
Don't push things.. this is a honeymoon, not a fanatic road trip...
There's a couple of nice romantic spots on the coast route up through Washington State near Olympic state park (Crescent Lake, for example), and then you can take the Ferry over to Victoria from Port Angeles, and from there a ferry from Victoria to Vancouver. But you'd bypass Seattle that way.
As the previous poster said, this is a honeymoon, not a fanatic road trip. If you are dead tired at the end of the day from driving, you will lack the needed energy for, um, honeymooning.
Napa is very romantic. How about 2 nights there, skip something else further north?
Carmel and Monterrey are south of San Francisco. Not sure why they come after SF on your itinerary. Carmel is very romantic. Instead of 1 night in Monterrey and 2 nights in Carmel, why not come up the coast from L.A. and spend one night at the Madonna Inn in one of their wildly themed rooms with the round bed and the fake fur? (Assuming your spouse-to-be has a great sense of humor, this place could be lots of fun on a honeymoon.) Then just do the 2 nights in Carmel, and skip the night in Monterrey? You can tour Monterrey while staying in Carmel.
In general, my advice would be to subtract three or four destinations from this trip (save them for your first anniversary), take it slower, and allow for plenty of time in the evenings for leisurely, romantic dinners for two.
I did a road trip honeymoon (not too surprising) and my idea of a holiday is to take long walks, sit by a fireplace/campfire and wander as my whim and that of my partner/wife/bride hits us. There are some awesome and romantic places between Napa and the coast -- I would leave Tahoe for another time and slowing wend northward. I just don't quite understand the need for 15+ hour days on the road. Does your bride-to-be share this urgency?
If you reach Mendocino -- I have celebrated a wedding and a few anniversarys at the Stanford Inn.
Relax, this is the one time in your life, you don't really need to "do everything".
Mark
What is Grant's Pass? What is so special about it? It seems interesting...
To be honest, except for a fun and funky, huge blackbird statue and a Muffler Man, I can't think of anything special about Grant's Pass. It's simply a good spot on the map to make a stop where you will have ample choices of lodging. Oh, it's not a bad place. I'm not knocking it. But it doesn't stand out as a special place to visit. Of course, I could be wrong.....now you got me curious.
Well, a bit of googling turned up something interesting. I guess Grant's Pass is more special than I thought. I was a vacation destination of choice by Clark Gable and Zane Grey and it appears there is more to do there but sleep or to use as a jumping off point to other things worth seeing that are close by (like Crater Lake, the Oregon Caves, and the Oregon Vortex.) Check it out!
the original plan was to drive from Napa to Tahoe early in the morning, spend the day in Tahoe, and then at around 6 or 7 drive to Redding. From what Mapquest told me it was about 3 hours from Napa to Tahoe, and then 4.5 hours from Tahoe to Redding. That is about 7.5 hours. Where did all of you get 15 from? Anyways, I think I'm gonna do 2 nights in Napa and move Carmel back one night. So now, the question is this: Where is the best place to stop between Napa and Seattle??? By best I mean the most interesting/romantic/coolest place as well as being convenient in shortening the driving distance to Seattle. SUGGESTIONS?
The plan was this:
-Spend the night in Napa.
-Leave Napa around 7 am and drive to Tahoe (should arrive around 10:30am?)
-Spend the day in Tahoe and leave there around 6-7 pm.
-Drive to Redding and arrive there around 11-11:30pm(??)
-Next day leave early in the morning to drive to Seattle and arrive around 8pm in Seattle
Now I think the confusion was that you all thought we were going from Napa to Redding to Tahoe and then back to the coast.
Now that you know that it's napa to tahoe and tahoe to redding in a day, is this still unrealistic???
By the way, my fiance and I are really into the beauty of nature and hiking and great romantic restaurants. Maybe that would help when making recommendations to us? I was looking at the Oregon Vortex, and it looks pretty cool, but we're more into beautiful mountains, valleys, waterfalls, scenic views etc. Any suggestions?
I think everyone has been pretty clear that they think a trip from Napa, to Tahoe, and then back to Redding is a very long day.
You can probably do Napa to Tahoe in around 3 hours, then you'll be looking at another 5 hours driving back to Redding. That's an 8 hour day already, and you want to throw in another 7 hours of siteseeing at Tahoe. That is a 15 hour day.
Then you want to wake up early and drive to Seattle, an 11 hour drive alone, and that's if you stick to I-5. If you want to throw in a drive to the coast, quite frankly, you can't make this leg of the trip in one day.
More importantly, you seem to be missing the point that most people don't consider 8-12 hour days of driving to be relaxing. Unless you really want your honeymoon to be an exhausting experience where you have absolutely no time to enjoy each other, I highly suggest you take the advice of every poster so far and scale back your plans.
I think your time estimates are pretty close to being right. However, I still wouldn't do it. If you really want to spend time visiting an awesome lake, I think you'd be better off skipping Tahoe and swinging past Crater Lake in Oregon on your way home. Tahoe is beautiful, no doubt about that. I think Crater Lake is even more beautiful and it is a lot less crowded with more hiking opportunities. So I would still save Tahoe for another trip when you really have time to enjoy the area and the other fun things close by like Virginia City, etc.
If you do you spend the night in Redding, then the most romantic place to stop is going to be too soon for a stop. That would be Ashland, Oregon. LOTS of bed & breakfasts and interesting inns. The half-way point would be around Eugene. It's a nice city but I wouldn't call it romantic. I'm sure they probably have some nice B&B's or something to stay in but I'm not aware of it. I have good friends I stay with when I'm there. Portland is a nice city if you want to get there for the night. I don't think you could go really wrong with any of these choices.
If you decide to skip Tahoe, you migth try something like this: leave Napa early and drive to Weed, CA. At Weed, take Hwy 97 to Crater Lake. This is a pretty drive and should take about 8 hours (straight driving) so add a bit more time for stops. The Crater Lake Lodge would be a lovely place to spend the night. Here's a page with some other lodging options but some don't look very close to the park. I don't recall if you're camping or not but there is lovely camping spots inside the park, too.
After you leave Crater Lake, continue north on 97 to just north of Chemult, OR, where you will take Hwy 58. Another beautiful drive which takes you through the Willamette National Forest. You will end up in Eugene where you will hook back up with I-5.
Since you have another night's stop (remember, Crater Lake was the night you planned to sleep in Redding), you won't need to drive too far that day. You could sleep in, enjoy Crater Lake a bit, and then drive to Portland (about 250 miles). Portland to Seattle the next day will only be about 175 and shouldn't take you much over 3 hours to drive.
Anyway, that's how I'd do it. Either way....ENJOY!
We are driving from L.A. to San Fran along the coast. That is pretty much our only coastal/Hwy 1 driving. Do you really think that it's nicer to drive on the interior from Napa or would we be better served driving on the coast up 101?
There was nothing in your itinerary indicating you were planning on any coastal driving after Napa. You posted you were doing Napa-Tahoe-Redding-Seattle. If you haven't done it yet, I would suggest doing the coast the entire way. However, I don't think you will have enough time to enjoy the coast if you only have 2 days to get to Seattle. If you could squeeze another day or two out for the rest of the coast, then, yes, you should stay on the coast the rest of your route.
You still need to leave off Tahoe.