Road Trip via Carmel

[Christine Bloomfield]

Hi I am travelling in september flying from Scotland to San Fransisco, can anyone tell the best route to take, I am wanting to go San Fransisco to Carmel and then onto Las Vegas. We have 2 days to do it in, can it be done?

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

"Best" is really not something that can apply generically, and there are a lot more questions than answers - most specifically how much time do you want to spend in Carmel and is that the only thing you hope to see. Also, is 2 days your plan, or do you have flexibility to add more time so you can see more of the amazing things along this drive.

But the short answer is yes, you could easily do it in 2 days. From Carmel, the fastest way would be to go over to US-101, across CA-46 to CA-99 to CA-58 (via Paso Robles, Bakersfield) and then back up I-15 at Barstow.

If you want scenic, then you'd take CA-1 all the way down the coast through Big Sur, and pick up the above route around Paso Robles.

[glc]

If you are planning on going from Carmel to Las Vegas in 1 day, 101/46/99/58/15 is your only reasonable choice - that's close to a 10 hour drive, it's over 500 miles. You would probably want to spend your night somewhere after Carmel. If you take the coast highway, you can spend the night in Cambria. It would take you about 3 hours to get from Carmel to Cambria with NO sightseeing stops, so plan accordingly. San Francisco to Carmel is about 2.5 hours by fastest route.