California Itineraries

[Pedro]

Thinking about planning a West Coast trip for next year but at the moment don't have a feel for what is practical in terms of distance, travelling, how long to stay in same location etc.

Would be very interested to see other people's itineraries and if you were going again what would you do differently?

Thanks,
Peter

[GerryH]

Hi Peter.

When we went last year we started with 5 nights in San Francisco. We then took a couple of days to drive down the Pacific Highway with an overnight stop in Pismo Beach. We visited Carmel on the way down to Pismo and then headed into Santa Barbera and Santa Monica en route from Pismo to Hollywood.

Then we had 2 nights in Hollywood with one day actually spent looking round Hollywood and Beverley Hills and the second day at Universal Studios.

After that it was 3 nights in Anaheim for our Disney fix and finally 6 nights in San Diego, mainly just for some relaxation time (we didn't really see much of the city itself).

The main thing I would do different would be to take a bit more time on the Pacific Highway leg of the trip. We didn't have time to see Monterrey or do the "17 Mile Drive" round the coast between Monterrey and Carmel and through Pebble Beach golf course. We'd probably stop overnight in Monterrey when we go back so we can see a bit more of this area. Similarly, we didn't have enough time to see places like Malibu or Hearst Castle, so we might stop off again somewhere like Santa Barbera to give us more time around that area.

[Mazzy]

Hi Peter, I am planning a trip for next year too, in August.

At the moment I have San Franciso 4 nights, Monterey 3 nights, Pismo Beach 2 nights, Hollywood 3 nights, and Disneyland 4 nights - 16 nights in total.

Hotels found up to now include Monterey Bay Inn, Hollywood Renaissance Hotel and we are staying on-site at Disneyland, at the Grand Californian, not cheap but we may only do this trip once and want the full experience.

Hope this helps a bit, it is very different from planning a WDW trip I have found, I think we are both going to be very busy for the next few months! ;)

[Rio]

Hi Peter,
I don't drive, so we just stay in Anaheim for the 2, 3 or 4 weeks, however long we are staying.
I have a couple of friends that live out that way, the one that lives in Anaheim drives us round and about Anaheim and Hollywood and the Beverly Hills area. My friend that lives in Perris (near to Palm Springs) drives us down to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon and then on to Nevada to stay in Vegas and then drives us back to Anaheim, usually done over about 4 days.
When we are in Anaheim, we do coach trips to visit Seaworld, Tijuana, Santa Monica, Venice Beach etc.
A lot of people say you need to be able to drive out there, but this is our 3rd visit there.
Love Rio

[Cyclospora]

I'm thinking of doing Virgin's Golden Triangle next Easter. 5 nights LA (Anahiem), 4 nights Las Vegas and 4 nights San Francisco. I was thinking of their multicentre trip but it looks like a lot of driving in a fortnight. Includes SF, LA, LV, Grand Canyon, Palm Springs and San Diego.

I'm thinking of moving into our local Tescos incase that gives me more points!

Annie :)

[bengunn]

We did a 3 week California trip in April/May 2005. We started at LA with a couple of nights in Anaheim (2 days in Disneyland/California Adventure), then down to San Diego for 3 days and back up the coast to Hollywood for 3 days (1 day Universal Studios and a trip to Warner Bros studios). Then we drove up Highway 1 to San Francisco over about 5 days (including Hearst Castle, elephant seals and the Big Sur). Could have done with more time at Monterey. After a long weekend in San Francisco, we drove to Yosemite National Park for 3 nights (amazing, a must do) and then back to San Franciso for a couple of days and back home from there.

We only booked the hotel in Anaheim before we left; all others were booked either the night before or on the morning of travelling except for Yosemite which we booked when we arrived in San Francisco. This would not be so easy in the summer but is no problem in April/May; we only ever had to call 2 motels to find somewhere.

A wonderful holiday but would be even better given 4 weeks! I really must write a trip report.

[Pedro]

Thanks for your replies. It's interesting to see different itineraries from those who have been and to hear what you would do differently with hindsight.

Monterey is a place most people enthuse about and I've noticed Mazzy, you have it in your plan for next year. Looks fabulous.

Peter

[Freyja]

Quite busy at the moment so I´ll make it short (don´t hesitate to ask more questions though).

We went (mom, dad, 4 kids age 11,9,4 and 1) in april and had the following Itinary:

Anaheim 5 nights (at the Embassy Suites, Buena Park, highly recommended): Did DL, DCA, Universal and sightseeing of Beverly Hills, Hollywood etc.

Drove to Las Vegas and stayed at the Flamingo 3 nights: Checked out the various hotels, went to the Celine Dion show, gamled a little and took a tour of Hoover Dam and Red Rock Canyon.

Drove to San Diego and stayed 4 nights: Went to Sea World and Tijuana (Mexico) as well as sightseeing in San Diego.

Back to Anaheim for the last 2 nights: Did DL and Fantasmic on our last night.

Great trip. Would definately do it this way again.

[Mazzy]

Yes Peter, I really like the look of Monterey, we are going to stay at this hotel: www.montereybayinn.com There are also some great pics of this hotel on tripadvisor.com It is right by the sea, in fact the balcony in the room hangs over the sea! They provide binoculars so you can watch the sea otters playing, how cool is that? :D The aquarium there looks fantastic, it's not just fish, they also have penguins and the sea otters. Also we are going to visit the wild animal park over in Salinas, you can actually book in to help the keeper wash the elephant, we are definitely going to do that! I have revised the itinerary since you first posted, and have dropped Pismo Beach, thought it was a step too far, we are now doing:

4 nights San Francisco at Holiday Inn Express Fishermans Wharf in family suite
4 nights Monterey at Monterey Bay Inn
3 nights Hollywood at the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel (to visit Universal as well)
and 5 nights at Disneyland Resort in The Grand Californian which is as near as you can get to the parks. We would also like to include a day at one of the local beaches, maybe Newport or Laguna.

We are going to use internal flights rather than drive for the most part, it's still all changeable, but once the flights start becoming available I will have to stop changing my mind and book something!

What month are you thinking of going?

[Tiggernut]

Below is our itinery (inc hotels) for our trip in November. DH and I have been twice before but this is the first time with our DD who'll be 6 at the time we travel. We've not included San Diego or Las Vegas (both of which we've done before) as we didn't want any more travelling then necessary for our DD. The only really LONG travelling day is between Anaheim and Oakhurst (about 8 hours according to our calculations) but we intend to stop off at a couple of shopping malls/Walmarts to break it up a bit.

HTH! :grin:


LHR to SFO (arrive 1.30 pm ) Wharf Inn Fishermans Wharf
49er's Game Wharf Inn Fishermans Wharf
San Francisco Wharf Inn Fishermans Wharf
San Francisco Wharf Inn Fishermans Wharf
San Francisco Wharf Inn Fishermans Wharf
Monterey Bay Best Western De Anza Monterey
Highway 1 drive Travelodge San Luis Obispo
Solvang/ Santa Barbara Park Vue Hotel Anaheim
Disneyland Park Vue Hotel Anaheim
Disneyland Park Vue Hotel Anaheim
Disneyland Park Vue Hotel Anaheim
Drive to Oakhurst Best Western Gateway Oakhurst
Yosemite Yosemite Lodge
Drive to SF (Bay area) Near SF - to be booked!
SFO (4.30 pm) On Plane
To LHR (10.30 am)

[eeyore88]

Mammoth Mountain, Bodie Ghost Town, and yosemite are fantastic places to visit.

Jean xx

[nic]

This is really useful for us too as we're thinking of going over for 3 weeks in November and really don't know where to start! I don't think we'll be spending too much time in the parks as some of you may. :)

[KittyKat]

Just returned from California and our itinerary was like this:

2 nights Crowne Plaza Redondo Beach (Los Angeles)
Drove down to near San Diego to stay 7 nights at Welk Resort
Drove up to Angel's Camp (foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains and gold rush country) to stay 6 nights at Worldmark Angel's Camp.
Back down to Los Angeles for one night staying in the Holiday Inn Woodland Hills (to see visit Universal Studios)
Finally, 3 nights at Hilton Anaheim for guess where?

We drove a total of 2,300 miles during those 19 days and managed to visit:

San Diego Wild Anaimal Park
Seaworld
San Diego
Yosemite NP
Lake Tahoe
Gold rush towns
Universal Studios
Disneyland
California Adventure

We had pre-purchased the Southern California CityPass which worked well and excellent value for money.

We had visited California previously so had already been to San Francisco/ Monteray/Highway 1 and decided to concentrate more on Southern California this time.

BTW driving in the greater LA area is a nightmare and not for the faint-hearted. Also a warning that Disneyland resort was very busy and its not even considered peak season yet (California Adventure was not quite so packed).

HTH

Kitty

[MattF]

We did the following

San Francisco - 4 nights (Holiday Inn Fisherman's Wharf)
Yosemite - 2 nights (Yosemite View Lodge)
Death valley - 1 night (Furnace Creek ranch)
Las Vegas - 4 nights (Excalibur)
Anaheim - 3 nights (Ananbella)
Pismo Beach - 2 nights (Best Western)
Beverly Hills - 3 nights (Beverly Hilton)

It was quite a lot of driving (about 1700 miles in total) but it wasn't too bad and we loved it!!

[dalymum]

This si also something we are thinking of doing next year but it seeems to be a lot more expensive than going to FLorida ( I know it's further) TCD are so reasonable for Florida and I know they do other parts of US - has anyone any idea of costs either with or without TCD ?
Thanks

[Tiggernut]

We've booked all of ours ourselves over the net....

We booked flights with BA during their sale in January - and got them for £500 less than if we bought them now.

We've looked round and chosen our hotels and booked them all on line (usually using the chain site where possible rather than through a middle man.)

Car hire we got through carbookers (part of ebookers) as they had a free upgrade and were pretty competitive at the time.

We've still got to get football tickets for the 49ers game and disney tickets (plus spending money of course) but for 2 adults and one child (who'll be 6) we've spent less than £2000 for Flight, car and hotels. We thought this was pretty good! :grin:

[dalymum]

That is reasonable Tiggernut - I'll have to do a bit more research. We want to do it next Summer so will be more expensive then anyway. Our holiday this year is end of September and we cant cope with waiting till after the summer. We have just booked a week in Majorca for July to get us through (thank God for plastic)
Thanks for the info

[Pedro]

Thanks again everyone. It's really helpful to see how everyone planned their trips as background before we start planning. Just got the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide to California for Father's Day so got my nose buried in there at the moment!

Mazzy- Monterey Bay Inn looks great, bookmarked it for future reference. Not sure when we would go but probably July or August.

Peter

[philtucker]

Trip planned for this August.

3 Nights in San Fran.

3 Nights in rented house in Yosemite.

3 nights on Coast near Santa Barbara.

7 Nights in Anaheim area (will day trip to San Diego from here).

3 Nights spare to visit / revisit anywhere that we would like to go before flying back from SFO.

[andyhayley]

If you are staying in San Fran, check out the Argonaut hotel.

Its brilliant (we stayed there in Feb), right down the road from pier 39 (easy 4 min walk), alcatraz boats etc, and the trolley stop is right outside the hotel. We got a bay view and could see the golden gate bridge and the trolleys from the window.

Carmel is a lovely little town, we stayed in 'SeaSide' at the marina dunes hotel which is like little chalets on the beach, you park your car in the car park, then they give all the guests a golf buggy to get to their villa. Its great, the noise from the sea was amazing, and the views of Monteray across the bay were cool.

Then, we drove down to LA, stopping in a place called Solvang on the way down. Solvang is like little Denmark, its what you would think a Danish town would look like, and its pretty round there.

Then in LA we stopped at the Renaissance, that was a lot more hectic after San Fran and the drive down, but great. Did the VIP tour at Universal which is brilliant, you get to go into real film studios and backlots on a little tram, zipping in and out of the main 'tourist trams'!

We then used TomTom, put in all the stars homes and did a drive, that was pretty neat.

Finally we flew over to Vegas, which was a bit of a let down, wished we had gone down to San Diego instead. Nothing much up with Vegas, but after super clean California, Vegas seems quite dirty, cig ends on the floor etc. I guess we were just so impressed with California.

Previously we have been to Yosemite and San Diego, they are all really good, you will have a great time!

[Cyclospora]

Would you recommend driving between Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Fransisco - or flying? Virgin do both packages and I don't know whether it's worth wasting a day driving 500 miles from LV to SF or not.

Annie

[MattF]

Would you recommend driving between Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Fransisco - or flying? Virgin do both packages and I don't know whether it's worth wasting a day driving 500 miles from LV to SF or not.

Annie

Highway 1 is fantastic - great views and well worth it in my opinion. We didn't do it last trip as we went from SF - Yosemite - Death valley - las Vegas - Anaheim - Pismo Beach - Beverly hills. However done it before and the views are fantastic. Worth doing it and planning various stops along the way. Carmel and pismo Beach I can highly reccommend.:D

[MattF]

Would you recommend driving between Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Fransisco - or flying? Virgin do both packages and I don't know whether it's worth wasting a day driving 500 miles from LV to SF or not.

Annie


Jusrt read yr post again. Sorry!:blush: well worth driving from SF to LV or vice versa as you can stop off in Death valley and Yosemite.

[KittyKat]

Would you recommend driving between Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Fransisco - or flying? Virgin do both packages and I don't know whether it's worth wasting a day driving 500 miles from LV to SF or not.

Annie

Yes, well worth both drives for the spectacular scenery. Although the LV to San Francisco I would advise a stopover or two en route.

Kitty

[Mazzy]

AndyHayley - tried to PM you, but it didn't go through, so will post it here in the hope you see it:

Hi, I hope you don't mind me PMing you, but I wondered if you could give me a bit more info on the VIP tour at Universal? Do you get to go on any of the rides during this tour? I'm asking as we only have one day to see Universal so want to make the most of it.

Also, I see you stayed at the Renaissance, we are planning to stay there too, during our trip next August, did you find the hotel was OK?

Thanks :D

[Pedro]

Some really good info now on this thread. Will try and summarise the itineraries when I get chance. Good to know there are plenty of West Coast experts out there to call upon.

Feel free to add any more itineraries.
Thanks again everyone.

Peter