San Francisco to LA - HELP !!!

[kirstyfm]

Hi there! I'm new to all this & really just wanted any suggestions or ideas on how I get started. I live in the UK - and me and my boyfriend have decided next year for our holiday - we would love to do a road trip in USA! We thought it'd be nice to go from San Francisco and end up in LA - stopping for a couple of days at a time in selected areas. We (or rather I!) came to this conclusion because my Mum & Dad got married in America and lived in Oakland & San Francisco for a bit while my Dad was playing pro-soccer for The Oakland Stompers! (Are they still around? This was back in the late 70's!!) - Anyway - being here in the UK and only ever visiting NYC in America, I don't really know how to start. From where to stop, to the process of hiring the car and where to stay! ANY suggestions pointing me in a suitable direction will be GREATLY appreciated. We're not planning on going until next July (I've always wanted to be in America for July 4th!) - but as I understand, it takes a lot of planning! Anyway, many thanks in advance!

Kirsty :)

[Mark Sedenquist]

Hi there! I'm new to all this & really just wanted any suggestions or ideas on how I get started.

Welcome to the Forum!

I live in the UK - and me and my boyfriend have decided next year for our holiday - we would love to do a road trip in USA! We thought it'd be nice to go from San Francisco and end up in LA - stopping for a couple of days at a time in selected areas. We (or rather I!) came to this conclusion because my Mum & Dad got married in America and lived in Oakland & San Francisco for a bit while my Dad was playing pro-soccer for The Oakland Stompers! (Are they still around? This was back in the late 70's!!)

I am not positive, but I think they disbanded in the late 1970's.

... only ever visiting NYC in America, I don't really know how to start. From where to stop, to the process of hiring the car and where to stay! ANY suggestions pointing me in a suitable direction will be GREATLY appreciated. We're not planning on going until next July (I've always wanted to be in America for July 4th!) - but as I understand, it takes a lot of planning!

I am not sure that planning is really required -- it can be part of the fun. But I prefer the mosey style of roadtripping.

But since you are planning on doing some planning -- there are a couple of books I would suggest you look at: California Highway One and Drive USA. Plus, I would suggest that you look at the page we created for International roadtrippers.

And you can use the search utility on this forum for looking at fellow roadtripper suggestions for your route between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Welcome to the ride!

Mark

[LA Native]

Welcome,

I just did an LA-SF trip again this past weekend (probably makes the 100th time) and will probably be driving back up in a couple weeks. Don't worry, even without planning you will have fun. All you have to do is start driving south and keep the ocean on your right. How many days are you planning on staying? How many days do you want to drive? Are you going one way or round trip?

Most people who are from out of town and wanting to do this trip would probably want to take highway 1, or PCH (pacific coast highway) as it's known here. You can start in San Francisco (aka The City, SF, but only tourist call it "Frisco"), but I'd take a short detour north to at least cross the Golden Gate bridge to Sausilito before you head down to LA (no cute names, just L.A) See, you can already start talking like a native. If you're not used to long distance driving, you'd better plan on making it at least 2 days of driving, maybe more, because it's probably a good 10 hours of driving or more on very twisty roads. And just a few of the highlights would be

Halfmoon Bay
Big Sur
Santa Cruz
Monterey/Carmel by the sea
Hearst Castle
Morro Bay
Santa Barbara
Solvang
Venice Beach

but there are literally hundreds of places along the way to stop depending on what you want to see. And if you want to see fireworks, I personally prefer the fireworks shows up in SF, if you find the right spot in the berkeley hills, you can see 3-4 fireworks shows at once.

[kirstyfm]

Thanks guys! I'll start looking into all your suggestions!
Even though this trip is a year off(!) - I'm getting rather excited. I've bought 3 books already! 1 from Amazon - California HighWay 1 - and 2 from Borders - Eyewitness Travel Guide to California - AND California from $70 a day!!! And from just looking through them - we've roughly (but can obviously change our minds easily) decided how long to stay places. We've got 2 weeks to do the trip. We thought Fly into San Fran & stay for 4 days, Santa Cruz 1 day, Monterey/Carmel (Mum says she loved it in Carmel - in the 70's!!) 2 days, SLO 1 day, Santa Barbara 1 day, Malibu 2 days, LA 3 days, then fly home. But if anyone thinks say...Malibu would just be worth staying 1 day, to get an extra day (etc etc) in LA - then again all suggestions welcome :-) I'm just worried about the cost of everything! Hence the $70 a day book! It's the flights that bump up the cost, coz it's from 2 different airports (it's tons more for the flight from here to SF! Cheap to come home!) - plus the car rental, dropping it off in a different place I imagine will be extra. I better start saving now!!

Thanks again :-)

Kirsty

[Robert Schaller]

Have you thought of getting a R/T flight to/from LAX instead and using one of your days to drive to San Francisco instead (or simply add one more day to your trip)? You might save "a ton" of money this way. Bob