San Fran-Santa Barbara-Death Valley-Vegas

April '09. 2 days to travel between SFO and Vegas.

Hi all,

I've been through the threads and got some really good tips but would really like some views on the following trip:

Day One - Leave SFO
Drive down to Santa Barbara with some wine tasting in the afternoon
Overnight stay in Santa Barbara

Day Two - Leave Santa Barbara
Drive to Vegas via Death Valley.

I'd appreciate any views on:

best road between SFO and Santa Barbara
best place for wine tasting
best place to stay in Santa Barbara
best route between Santa Barbara and Vegas via death valley

Any other tips, ideas, suggestions........this is our first time to California so keen to get a real feel for things.

Thanks for your help!

The best road from SF to SB is CA-1, the coast road. However, this is really a 2 day drive. If you only have 1 day, take US-101 all the way. It's about 340 miles, freeway and near-freeway quality all the way, figure 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 hours depending on traffic. You will be missing spectacular coast scenery.

SB to LV via Death Valley is close to 500 miles. Doable in a day, but it won't leave you much time to do anything in Death Valley except blow through, just the drive will probably be at least 10 hours. Route is 101 to 126 to I-5, Magic Mountain Pkwy, Valencia Blvd and Soledad Canyon Rd to 14, (or just go down I-5 to 14) to 395 to 190 through the park. On the other side, State Line Rd to Pahrump and 160 into LV.

Are you sure you can't make this a 4 day trip?

Thanks for your quick reply glc.

I guess we could look to make it a 3 day trip - we are spending 4 days in SFO at the start so could cut that down by a day. Is 3 days enough for SFO?

If we were to add a day where would you recommend adding this - the ride to Santa B or the trip through death valley?

It all depends what you want to see the most - the coast or DV. If you plan on wine tasting in SB in the afternoon, you can't take the coast road with only 1 day. You will miss out on Santa Cruz, Monterrey/Carmel, Big Sur, and the Hearst Castle. You can still go *through* DV on a 1 day drive, you would have to leave SB at the crack of dawn and possibly rush through the park to get out before dark. You wouldn't have much time to take any side trips in the park to see anything but what you see from the car windows driving down 190. It's no big deal driving from the east gate through Pahrump to LV after dark though.

Hello and welcome to the R.T.A. forums.

Depending on how long your stay in Vegas is, and if you still have use of a car while there, then it would be possible to do a day trip to Death Valley from Vegas and enjoy the coast road. Here are some suggestions for Days out from Vegas.

While in San Fran I would reccommend taking a visit to Alcatraz. It's possible [advisable] to Book your boat tickets through the N.P.S, the only official site selling them, if it appeals to you. Be sure to check out Pier '39 it's got a great atmosphere with lots of places to eat.

SB-LV is 350 miles by the most direct highways - a 6 hour drive - if you choose to make DV a day trip out of LV later. Take the same route to 14, then pick up 138 in Palmdale, take that and 18 to Victorville and pick up I-15 to LV.

Thanks, this is really helpful.

To turn things totally on its head, what do you think about taking a different route and heading east of sfo, taking the southern road past yosemite and then down through DV to vegas rather than the wine tasting and Santa Barbara?

My main concern with that is the time of year. Is the accesible southern road in yosemite worth consideration over the coast run down to SB and across?

That would be a worthwhile 2 day trip. By then, everything should be open except Tioga Pass and Glacier Point.

To free some additional time to explore the coastline, we could knock Santa Barbara wine tasting on the head and take a day trip up to Napa from SFO instead.

Are we likely to have as good an experience in napa as around SB? I am a bit worried that the number of people around napa may impact this. What do you think?

Sorry about that - read the next post!

One of the most fun places to go wine tasting is the central coast between Santa Barbara and Monterey. Leave the crowds and commercialism behind of Napa and Sonoma valley and go explore the central coast area! Here is a guidebook that will make your trip golden! I've used it and I can recommend it highly!

Mark

Thanks very much.

It sounds like we need to make the effort to cover SB.

This will mean cutting a day off either SFO or LV - we currently have 4 nts in each.

Will three days be enough to cover LV? (We will spend one day out at GCNP - likely one of the helicopter tours given the time constraints) and maybe another day out at DV.

Like most places you can spend a lot more time at either and not see it all, but if you had 3 days at each of the city's it would give you time to explore the central areas and get a feel of the place. It's all down to how best use the time you have available to suit your own interests.

The Heli tours from Vegas will only land around the Lake Powell or West rim areas of the G/C. To see GCNP "proper" [North or South rim] you will need to drive there or if it's possible get a flight to Grand canyon airport in Tusayan and transport to the park. Probably easier to drive !

Thanks Dave.

Is the west rim that much less impressive than the south/north rim? We could do the drive, which I'm guessing will be a 10 hr round trip but is the west rim inferior enough to warrant this?

Also, what is the drive like between LV and the South rim? Scenic or pure freeway?

Thanks for all your advice, helpful and appreciated.

The West Rim is not part of the National Park, its land that is part of an Indian Reservation. It is also home to the Skywalk. From what I've heard, the roads are in pretty rough shape, and drive time wise, its not really much of a difference from Vegas.

The trip to the South Rim is both scenic and freeway (the two things aren't mutually exclusive. US-93 will take you over Hoover Dam and then its a pretty quick trip down to I-40, for a nice 4-lane drive across Northern Arizona. At Williams, you turn back north onto 2 lane roads towards the Grand Canyon. The trip is at least 5 hours each way, and honestly, its really too far to try to do as a one day round trip from Las Vegas.

Thanks Michael.

This leaves us a dilemma as we haven't really got the time for a two day trip out to the GCNP.

Based on what you've said is the helicopter tour not worth considering? I guess we're left with the decision now of helicopter trip or miss out the GC altogether - even noting that it's not NP, is it still an impressive trip?

I'm not aware of any flights that stop at the South/North rim - are you? That would be the ideal solution. There's nothing that goes out of the airport from what I can see and all the tours seem to be west rim only.

There will always be choices to be made in any trip. Whether the best option for you is to take a helicopter trip, change your plans to give yourself enough time to drive, or to skip the grand canyon all together, that depends upon you.

I'm sure a helicopter trip would be fun and you'd get to see part of a natural wonder, but it won't be the same experience as standing on the edge, and it will likely cost a fair amount of money. At this point, it just depends upon what is most important to you.

There are no commercial flights to the South Rim (Tusayan Airport) but you may be able to charter a small flight out of Las Vegas. You'll have to do some more investigating on your own about those possibilities.

Ok, thanks very much, this is great to know. I've checked out a few options, taking on board what you've said and I think we will probably go for the flight down to the south rim along with the coach to the main viewing points. This is a day trip and won't offer us the flexibility of an extended period at the south rim but will be a good compromise.

Our trip is now coming together nicely.

Fly into SFO - spend 3 nts.

Day four drive down to Santa Barbara, taking a long day along the coast road. We now need to decide where to stop. We're aiming for Monterey, Santa Cruz and SLO with breaks as and when.

**Would appreciate any other suggestions?***

Spend a night in Santa Barbara and then a full day wine tasting in the Santa Ynez valley.

**Does anybody have any advice on the better wineries/more scenic areas?***


Day six - the long haul to Vegas via Death Valley (though may still change our minds on this one and go straight to Vegas and cover DV as day trip)

Four nts in LV:

Will spend a day at the GCNP as above
Also some other trips to some of the options at

Vegas days out

Day 11 - fly back to SFO for one further day/nt, then fly home.