West Coast Road Trip - Feeling Overwhelmed

[lwhit_x]

We're currently planning our honeymoon for September 2020, we initially talked about returning to WDW but would like to go somewhere different. We've always talked about doing a road trip down the west coast, likely starting in San Francisco for around 5 nights, then make a few overnight stops on the drive down PCH (Monterey/Carmel, Solvang). Then end up in LA for around a week.

We've got a list of things that we would like to do and places we would like to see but we've no clue how long to allow for each thing;
Golden Gate Bridge
Alcatraz
Pier 39
Lombard Street
Union Square
Walt Disney Family Museum
Disneyland
Universal Studios
Warner Bros Studio Tours
Rodeo Drive
Griffith Observatory
Hollywood Blvd
Sunset Blvd
Muscle Beach

I've no clue where to start or where to stay. If anyone can give any advice it would be greatly appreciated.

[jdouds]

Hi we have done 2 west coast trips so here we go , how long will the trip be.
For San Fran a morning cycle out to the bridge then over and down to sausilito ,lovely place to have some lunch and the take the ferry back. This is what would be the norm. Possibly the evening tour of Alcatraz . A morning walk to the Disney museum ., followed by some retail therapy . So your left with cable car ride, union sq a lot of homeless people and maybe not a place to spend time, and some tome at pier 39 etc.
Would then suggest 3 nights Monterey/Carmel , these are basically joined together. It's from here we have had one of our highlight a whale watching trip, just fantastic. Some lovely restaurants and shops in Carmel .
Further down the coast stop at San Simeon to see the elephant seals and possibly Hearst castle. We then travelled and stayed at Santa Barbara which we liked. Others have favourite stops elsewhere .
For us 3/4 days LA is enough and would perhaps suggest 2/3 days San Diego or from San Fran take a detour to yosemite.
Hope this helps get you started

[lwhit_x]

Originally Posted by jdouds

Hi we have done 2 west coast trips so here we go , how long will the trip be.
For San Fran a morning cycle out to the bridge then over and down to sausilito ,lovely place to have some lunch and the take the ferry back. This is what would be the norm. Possibly the evening tour of Alcatraz . A morning walk to the Disney museum ., followed by some retail therapy . So your left with cable car ride, union sq a lot of homeless people and maybe not a place to spend time, and some tome at pier 39 etc.
Would then suggest 3 nights Monterey/Carmel , these are basically joined together. It's from here we have had one of our highlight a whale watching trip, just fantastic. Some lovely restaurants and shops in Carmel .
Further down the coast stop at San Simeon to see the elephant seals and possibly Hearst castle. We then travelled and stayed at Santa Barbara which we liked. Others have favourite stops elsewhere .
For us 3/4 days LA is enough and would perhaps suggest 2/3 days San Diego or from San Fran take a detour to yosemite.
Hope this helps get you started

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Thanks so much for this! Yes, I probably should have said that the trip will be around 19 nights. If we've got the time (and money!) we would love to fit in Hawaii but know this would be quite tight.

[red cuillen]

Hi, I guess you've looked at trip reports? I guess much depends on what interests you, the drive down PCH itself, or stopping to look at wildlife, or castles/museums etc.
Cycle over the bridge and get a ferrry back is quite popular - half a day.
Or a full day tour with dylans to take in Muir Woods, (other redwoods are available on your trip south!)
Lombard St, Pier 39, (busy and touristy) and Union Sq don't need long, another half day depending on where you are staying.
Walt Disney museum 3-4 hours, information overload here I'm afraid. Presidio area nice to stroll around and easy to walk back to FW from here.
So thats a good 3 days in San F.
Travel down to LA can take as long as you like! You can detour via Yosemite, or keep to the coast but pop into other resorts on the way, Carmel, Big Sur etc. Best to plan where to stay based on other attractions you want to visit. We used a place north of Moss Landing as we didn't fancy Monterey - (too touristy), then drove to Solvang, then onto Santa Monica, but there are so many choices you really can use up 3-5 days here if you want.
Universal - 1 day
Warner bros 3-4 hours, (nice cafe for lunch).
You can easily drive yourself down the boulevards, wouldn't take long, Muscle beach is a shadow of its former self and Venice Beach still very tacky, nice to look by day, (lovely buildings), quite unpleasant at night.
Griffith Obs, depends how involved you want to be with the science talks, but Griffith Park for us took a whole day, lots of hiking trails etc, Walts carousel and of course 'the sign'. (best viewed from Hollywood Park -see our trip report! ).
Disneyland, opinions differ vastly. Consensus would be 3 days, 1 for each that the best bits on day 3. We did 5, though arrived in the afternoon, and left on day 5 morning!

So much to so and do, no wonder you're overwhelmed! Don't try to do too much, try to stay for more than 1 night, otherwise the holiday soon becomes a blurr. Use North LA for Warner/Universal etc, and Anaheim for Disney.
That ought to do for starters!

[flo-tinka]

Some really helpful replies here. I think a lot of us know about the overwhelming thing, when compared with our WDW safe zone but we
think like that before we go and then come back having a had a great time.
Try Burbank for the Hollywood etc stuff and I agree you need to move and stay Anaheim for Disney, loads of off site hotels that are easy walking distance. We stayed there 5 nights.
I echo the comment don’t do many 1 night stays, it’s great to get to know the environs and feel semi settled with 4/5 night stays.
Hawaii probably a step too far too include in that tour, next time maybe?!

[Sanny64]

hi
i would do:-

fly into san francisco airport

san fran - 4nights
Pick up hire car on last day in san fran
montery - 2nights
santa barbara- 2nights
Anaheim (disneyland/california adventure) - 4 nights
LA Burbank (univl, Warner Bros Tour, Griffiths obs, LA) - 4 nights

drop car off at LAX airport
fly out of LAX

Leaves an extra three nights to try and fit in Hawaii or San Diego if possible or add extra nights wherever you want.

[Pookle]

We've recently done similar.

As mentioned we did the cycling over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito and got the ferry back. We actually took a day doing this as we took a slow cycle (with kids) and stopped, had a long leisurely lunch before ferry back and a bit more a cycle back from Pier 1. We loved this and Sausalito has such a cosmopolitan feel, felt like we were in Europe somewhere.

If you're stopping near Monterey/Carmel - we enjoyed a whale watching trip. That took about 3-4 hours.

We saved some time in San Francisco by booking the night tour for Alcatraz. That was roughly from 5pm - 9pm but it left the daytime free for other things.

Pier 39, just shops and restaurants. We covered it in about 20 mins but went back several times during our stay. Lombard Street was about a 5 min detour.

We spent a day and evening doing Universal. Got there at 8am, left about 8pm and Warner Bros took 2 hours. Obviously got to build in travel time if not staying nearby but we stayed right there in Burbank at the Tangerine which was perfect as it was a really short walk to Warner Bros.