Hi AZBuck!
It is such a balance, isn't it! Ideally I'd love for us to have more time at every stop but time and resources are naturally limited so we have to prioritise things. After some discussion amongst the family we agreed that the way we did things last year was not to everyone's cup of taste but that wasn't so much the moving along from hotel to hotel; rather the longer days in the car which inevitably ended up with the kids getting irritable. I also feel that the danger with basing yourself in one spot and then travelling back and forth is that you often cover the same ground multiple times. With this in mind we have tried to identify certain 'destinations' - taking a couple of nights at a time at these locations - and then break up the longest of the drives between them with interesting stops along the way to break the journey or overnight stops where necessary. The suggestion that we drive six-seven hours direct to Death Valley, for example, was met with the demand that we stop somewhere en route (Bakersfield simply being a placeholder for that stop which we would determine on the day depending on how energetic everyone felt - or otherwise!)

We spent several days in San Francisco only last year and we are really only using it as a hopping on point so we are not worried about spending any more time there than it takes to acclimatise a little to the new time zone. Given the very linear nature of the PCH route, and the relative lack of (affordable) accommodation along the way, it seemed that the only realistic option was to stop at either end which leads us to what we have come up with so far. It is indeed a little less than perfect but I cannot see any other way of meeting the criteria of limiting the daily hours in the car, seeing the PCH (which we missed last year), spending time on the beaches at the south of the route, etc. I can look at it again though as I would be more than happy to change that section up a little if it helps the flow. What, would you say, is a realistic timeframe from the Fishermans Wharf area of San Francisco to somewhere in the San Luis Obispo are via the PCH? We'd want to stop at a couple of state parks along the way plus the obligatory pull offs for photos. I am not sure that is a comfortable drive in a single day? If it is then perhaps a change is on the cards there.

We have made some tweaks and changes to other aspects of the trip to try and minimise the number of nights on the move; I just need to get round to writing it up and I will post it but would love to hear the views on the above before I do.

Thank you.