5 day (4night) road trip from LA to SFO

[Slartibartfast]

Hi all,

We're going to California in the Easter holidays, and have the start of the trip all planned with Disney and other LA city activities, but have five days at the end to do something else. We fly out of San Francisco in the early evening of our 5th day, and so have to get back there.

Current thoughts are to minimise long drives, and do:

Day 1: LA->Pismo
Day 2: Pismo -> Sequoia & Kings Canyon
Day 3: S&KC -> Yosemite
Day 4: Yosemite
Day 5: Yosemite -> SF

But does anyone have any better ideas? I'd wondered about going the other way into Arizona and then getting a domestic flight back to SF.

Thanks for any ideas,

Slarti.

[Northtim]

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

Hi all,

We're going to California in the Easter holidays, and have the start of the trip all planned with Disney and other LA city activities, but have five days at the end to do something else. We fly out of San Francisco in the early evening of our 5th day, and so have to get back there.

Current thoughts are to minimise long drives, and do:

Day 1: LA->Pismo
Day 2: Pismo -> Sequoia & Kings Canyon
Day 3: S&KC -> Yosemite
Day 4: Yosemite
Day 5: Yosemite -> SF

But does anyone have any better ideas? I'd wondered about going the other way into Arizona and then getting a domestic flight back to SF.

Thanks for any ideas,

Slarti.

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I haven't done Sequoia and Kings Canyon but in the time you have I wonder if it will be a lot of travelling and very rushed to fit them in?

Have you considered dropping S & KC, travelling the rest of the Pacific Coast Highway up to Monterey (which is a spectacular drive!) and then heading to Yosemite - which I have been to and it is truly jaw dropping.

[Lell]

I think if it was me I would do more of PCH and Yosemite or Sequoia not both. We did a 3 week roadtrip in 2017 and were meant to do both but changed our plans midway through and dropped Sequoia/Kings Canyon. We are doing it in September during our next road trip instead.

[Slartibartfast]

I'll give that some thought. Actually the Pismo beach stop was only added in really to reduce each drive segment to about 3 hours. Might be tempted to do the reverse and remove that - makes the drive to S&KC about 5hrs, but gives me back a day.

Slarti.

[400ixl]

What are you doing the day before heading North?

I'd be tempted to have that as a general LA day doing the sights (Hollywood etc) and then heading North as far as Bakersfield if you can in the evening, or at least to Santa Clarita (there are a couple of hotels on the I5 junction for Six Flags). Would give you a jump start to be out of the LA traffic the next morning.

I wouldn't head across to Pismo as there isn't that much to see between LA and there and you will then be heading back inland. You wouldn't get to see the better parts of the PCH on that drive.

[Slartibartfast]

Probably staying in North LA, so can get out reasonably easily. I'm now thinking of ditching S&KC and Pismo, and maybe driving straight from LA to Yosemite.

With the change of plan, if I do that, I think we'll stay three nights, which will give us 2 full days, the end of our arrival day, plus a tiny bit when we leave to drive back to SFO for the evening flight.

[Twilight Nerd]

We did 2 nights at grant grove and 2 nights Yosemite in 2018 had a great time. Driving the coast is good but long and found it long in 2017. If you do decide on sequoia & kings canyon try and visit Hume lake our teenagers lived it.