Tips & Advice for: Seattle to LA to Kansas City!

[Ashley Charlton]

I currently live in Seattle and I am going to move back home to Kansas City in 4 weeks. I want to turn my drive back home into a little road trip. I drove to Seattle from KC by myself and am fully capable of driving 10-12 hours in 1 day. I will have someone with me this time to help with driving if need be. I am not interested in making many or long stops until I reach Big Sur area. I will do this road trip again in the future when I have the time and resources to full enjoy it. For now, I'd just like to drive by and take in a little bit a beauty...

My plan is to take I-5 until Roseburg, OR and then take 101 until I pass the OR/CA border and spend the night somewhere a few hours past the border. The next day I'd like to make it to LA and spend the night and spend the next day or two touring the LA area. Then I'll start my drive back to Kansas City by driving through Vegas, Utah and CO.

I only need tips for the first part of the trip, the drive to LA. I have never been to California before. Any advice on the best day to begin the drive (for less traffic)? A Friday or a Saturday? I am planning to leave May 20th or May 21st. Also, what very few places are must see along the way? Places, beaches to check out in LA (other than In-N-Out)? Any other tips or advice would be helpful & appreciated! Thank you!

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA forum!

The real first thing you need to understand is that you have got an extremely overoptimistic and unrealistic expectation of how far you can travel via the Coastal Highway. There simply is no way you can get from far Northern California to LA in one day via US-101. That would be a difficult drive even if you stuck to I-5 (it's more than 12 hours from LA to Oregon via I-5), and US-101/CA-1 takes 2-3 times longer. You need 2 days to get from San Francisco to LA alone via the coast, and starting from Northern California, you need a bare minimum of one more day on top of that. That is just for drive time, factoring the slow nature of the road, and a very limited amount of sightseeing.

The other issue you need to worry about at this time is that Landslides have severely limited access to Big Sur at this time. The road is actually closed both north and south of Big Sur at this time (the only access to the area right now is through a remote mountain road that crosses through an active military facility). They are working to get to restore at least one lane of traffic in the affected areas, but even if they are in place by the time of your travel, you need to expect significant additional delays.

[Ashley Charlton]

Thank you for the help... What IS the fastest way to get from Seattle to LA? And how many days & driving hours would that entail (not including stops)?

[Midwest Michael]

The fastest way is clearly I-5. It can be done in 2 days, 10-12 hours each day on the road. The halfway point would be about Redding, CA.