New to RoadTrip! Need Suggestion for roadtrip on CA~

[Angelina]

Hi,
My friends and I (about 7 people) are planning to go on a road trip during spring break. We'll begin our journey in Los Angeles, and the trip will take approxiately 3-4 days. We want to go on a scenic drive, but we also want to stop at some beautiful places. In general, we hope that not only will we be able to experience the nature, we also want to have a great time in the cities (such as San Francisco).

It'd be great if you can provide us with some suggestions and information.

Thanks a lot.

Angelina

I can't find the other thread I posted to, but someone else was asking the same thing about SF and LA, either taking the coastal route, or going a little inland. Just SF alone can fill 4 days, depending on what you want to do. off the top of my head I remember

monterey
solvang
big sur
santa barbara
santa cruz
muir woods

and in SF there's just too much stuff to list. if you do a search, I'm sure you'll find it.

JUST USE "COAST" as your search word and list your user id as the author and it'll come up with all your posts on the topic -- (there were others if this isn't the one).


Date: January 30, 2004 09:47 AM
Author: LA native

It's possible, but I think you're looking at 20+ hours of driving time minimum. If you plan on doing somesightseeing, I would guess it's about 4 driving days It's a nice trip, the only thing that I would mention is that Las Vegas is kinda a long detour from the rest of your itinerary. If you leave from LA, figure on 5 hours to get to San Simeon, another few hours to get to SF, but from SF to Vegas is about 9 hours on the most direct route. I don't think you'll have to worry about snow, there are a couple different routes you can take cutting through Bakersfield, I've never encountered snow on them. Search the forum for stockdale highway and you'll find them.

If it were me, I might rearrange the trip so that you leave from LA, head over to Vegas (4 hours) spend a night or two there. then come back down to San Diego (5 hours) for a night or two. From there you can start heading up the coast to LA, on your way to San Simeon (6-7 hours) Then from San Simeon is another 4 hours to san francisco to spend however much time you want, then back down to LA (6-10 hours, depending on the route) This breaks up your trip into shorter segements, plus the road to vegas is relatively easy, gives you a chance to get used to driving here. These are all based on California driving times, which in some cases can average 80+ mph on some stretches of highway.

search for indio, under spring break. There were a few of these threads about SF/LA, I almost forgot about all the others.