West Coast Itinerary - Sept/Oct 2019

[Fireworks]

Hi, we are going to California for the 3rd time late September 2019 and wanted to try to do things we hadn't done before, although we love Santa Barbara and San Diego so they were must-do's again for us. We are flying into and out of San Francisco, although we don't plan to visit San Francisco this time. Itinerary so far reads like this after hours and hours of research and booking/cancelling/rebooking hotels through Topcashback

26 September
Fly Manchester to San Francisco with Thomas Cook
Drive to Santa Cruz, 1 night Beach Street Inn and Suites

27 September
Drive down the coast to Pismo Beach - Pismo Beach, Avila Beach, San Luis Obispo
2 nights Beach House Inn and Suites

29 September
Drive to Solvang
1 night Royal Copenhagen Inn

30 September
Drive to Santa Barbara
3 nights Harbor House Inn

3 October
Drive to Oceanside
1 night Comfort Suites

4 October
Drive to San Diego
5 nights either Best Western Plus Island Palms or Best Western Plus Bayside Inn (can't decide on the hotel here as we have stayed on Shelter Island before and also in the centre of San Diego, I think hubby slightly prefers staying more central so he doesn't have to drive all the time

9 October
Drive to Palm Springs - Palm Springs Aeriel Tramway, Joshua Tree National Park
2 nights Coyote Inn

11 October
Drive to Lone Pine - day spent in Death Valley
2 nights Comfort Inn

13 October
Drive to Yosemite
2 nights Yosemite Westgate Lodge

15 October
Drive to Napa
2 nights either Best Western Plus Elm House or Blackbird Inn

17 October
Drive back to San Francisco airport


Any thoughts, suggestions, recommendations would be very welcome.

[cornishfrogboy]

That looks really great, as well as achievable, a reasonable driving/enjoyment balance and clearly well researched after previous experience and knowledge.

1. Will the Monarch Butterflies be in at Pismo?
2. Have you considered the Madonna Inn at San L Obispo?

We only stoped a few hours at Oceanside when picking up our Gosandiego5 tickets. We saw the topgun house, loved the area at first glance and definitely want to return.

[Fireworks]

Originally Posted by cornishfrogboy

1. Will the Monarch Butterflies be in at Pismo?

See more...

Had no idea what you meant by this until I googled it - hopefully we will miss it, think I would be freaked out by so many butterflies in one place

Originally Posted by cornishfrogboy

2. Have you considered the Madonna Inn at San L Obispo?

See more...

We definitely want to pay it a visit, and did consider staying there, but we love staying on the coast.


Thanks for your replies, especially about Oceanside as that was one of the places I was really unsure about. We originally wanted to stay at Long Beach but the prices for anything I liked the look of were very high

[cornishfrogboy]

Re long beach, we stayed our last night there at Easter.. onboard RMS Queen Mary. It was an incredibly good experience all round and the cabin was very spacious, comfortable.. and of course.. dated. The ship is magnificent.

You can see San l Obispo, Oceanside, Queen Mary, Santa Monica and San Diego, La Jolla Scripps and other stuff (with images) on my hopefully very honest review.. California N. to South at Easter. We tried to do a few things other than the standards and it certainly worked for us.

[Fireworks]

Thank you Cornishfrogboy, it was after reading your trip report last night that I looked into staying at Oceanside

Really enjoyed reading your report, will have to make the effort to write one myself this time as I've had so much help in the planning process by reading about everyone else's experiences.

[jdouds]

Hi have you considered staying a bit closer to yosemite, I know this May be a bit more expensive but in our experience worth it. Have a look at El portal. Yosemite view lodge, or if it's possible blue butterfly bb, we stayed there and can only highly recommend . From el portal the trip in and out of park is much easier. Also hope you have planed to go in via tioga pass from Death Valley

[Fireworks]

Thank you for that jdouds. I have really been struggling with Yosemite accommodation but have just looked at the blue butterfly B&B and it looks really nice and does have availability for our dates so am off to book it as it is much closer to Yosemite than the very basic accommodation we had booked.

Yes, we are definitely aiming to arrive via Tioga pass, providing it is open in mid October