San Fran south to LA area via PCH 1

[4boys]

Hi we are looking for advice on places to stay and visit on our trip from San Fran to LA area via Pacific coast highway in late May, will be staying in San Fran for 2 days then we have 5-6 days of travel and sightseeing before flying out of LA...tips on eating and must sees appreciated...thanks

[AZBuck]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but for much of CA-1's length between the San Francisco Bay area and the La Basin, it's official name is the Cabrillo Highway rather than the PCH. As for 'Must Sees', the highway itself is just that. There are lots of pull-outs and maybe a half-a-dozen small towns between Carmel-by-the-Sea at the northern end and Santa Barbara at the southern end of the more-or-less wide open part of the road. The major public lands are Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park and Los Padres National Forest, but there are smaller parks such as Montaña de Oro State Park and Dinosaur Caves Park.

At either end of the highway, northward of Carmel and southward of Santa Barbara, things are a bit more built up as you are getting close enough to San Francisco and Los Angeles for people to commute into the outer fringes of those larger metropolitan areas. Lodging and restaurant choices are highly personal, so we tend not to make specific recommendations in those areas unless we have specific personal knowledge. Also note that for much of this drive, your choices are going to be somewhat limited as noted above.

You could conceivably do the entire drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles in a single modestly long day of driving, so depending on how you want to divvy up your five or six days
you can really take your time on getting to LA> Personally, I'd probably take two full days for the drive, staying overnight in San Louis Obispo which is large enough to have a multitude of lodging and restaurant options. The other two or three days I'd spend in the LA area and/or heading inland a bit to visit either Joshua Tree National Park or Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

AZBuck

[Southwest Dave]

You could also do the 17 mile drive between Pacific grove and Pebble beach near Monterey or book a Hearst castle tour. If you wanted to see something other than coast you could visit one of the Redwood State parks between SF and Santa Cruz such as the Henry Cowell Redwoods State park just north of Santa Cruz.

[travelingman]

Stop at Monterey Bay Aquarium! It is IN the famous Cannery Row. It is spread out over a couple buildings and has some really neat tanks full of jellyfish. You could spend a lot of time there.

https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/

Just walking around town is pretty scenic, and you have to stop at the huge ghirardellis candy shop. They have ice cream too.

There are also a number of restaurants in town, but we didn’t try any.

[Ryzer25]

Stop at Monterey Bay Aquarium! It is IN the famous Cannery Row. It is spread out over a couple buildings and has some really neat tanks full of jellyfish. You could spend a lot of time there.

https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/

Just walking around town is pretty scenic, and you have to stop at the huge ghirardellis candy shop. They have ice cream too.

There are also a number of restaurants in town, but we didn’t try any.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium looks great! We will be driving soon to Ridgemark for a family gathering on wifey's side and it will be the first visit for the kids. Got to finish installing the brake kit and all-terrain tires on the 4Runner this week so we can add more days of travel. The Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary is on our list as well.

[travelingman]

You might want to think about getting reservations. We traveled in mid September with an RV and it was difficult to book a public or private campground weeks ahead of time. Don’t know if that pertains to hotels or not. Something to check ahead of time.