California Coast in January
 

My husband and I are trying to take a trip and get out of the NYC cold this January. We are considering Arizona and California. Neither of us have done the drive through Big Sur and wanted some advice on whether or not going in January would be a terrible idea or not. We are not married to any one vacation yet, so if anyone has any other good trips for late January in California (or anywhere without Zika virus for that matter) we are all ears! Thank you!

>>Neither of us have done the drive through Big Sur and wanted some advice on whether or not going in January would be a terrible idea or not<<

January is the rainiest month of the year in CA -- and we sure hope it is rainy because we need it for the rest of the year.

You could be lucky and it be clear and crisp -- but you do not want to be in Big Sur during a big winter storm.

Of all the places you are considering (from your various threads) the warmest will be Tucson. San Diego might be OK -- won't be beach weather but is often lovely in the winter.

If you are looking for warmth, Big Sur will not be warm in January. If you want to go to California for warmth, you want southern California. In addition to San Diego, consider Palm Springs. Arizona (Tucson, Phoenix) will be warm, but areas up in the mountains will not be.

Take a good look at some of the weather websites - I like www.weatherbase.com - and see what places have the weather you are looking for.

As they say on the street, past performance is no guarantee of future results, or, simply, YMMV.

However, here are some pictures I took in January on couple of drives (different years) from Seattle to southern California. Yes, it can rain, but the odds aren't terrible.

Migrating monarch butterflies, Pacific Grove (Monterey Peninsula) - http://gardyloo.us/20130124_155a.JPG and http://gardyloo.us/20130124_187a.JPG

Big Sur coast south of Point Lobos - http://gardyloo.us/20130119_61H1a.jpg

Elephant seal rookery, Piedras Blancas, near San Simeon - http://gardyloo.us/20130119_90a.JPG and http://gardyloo.us/20130124_7a.JPG

Refugio Beach, north of Santa Barbara - http://gardyloo.us/20110203_6a.JPG and http://gardyloo.us/20110203_61a.JPG

Mission Santa Barbara (1820) - http://gardyloo.us/20110205_8a.JPG

For what it's worth, on one of the trips we continued on to Palm Springs and Joshua Tree NP, affordable and fabulous at that time of year. Joshua Tree - http://gardyloo.us/20110205_55a.JPG and our PS hotel - http://gardyloo.us/20110206_18a.JPG ( http://www.theandalusiancourt.com/ )

If it starts raining heavily the Big Sur road often closes due to landslides. With the ongoing drought and prediction for La Nina that may or may not happen

Cambria, San Luis Obispo, Pismo Beach are options where you could book for a few nights and if the weather is good, it's a half-day drive up to Carmel from there. The weather along the central coast tends to be cooler than in San Diego, but winter might be sunny and clear, even up in San Francisco, (in between storms if we are lucky enough to get them).

Last January we did an 8-day trip to the south central CA coast. Our weather was "all of the above", some absolutely beautiful sunny days and some days of storm watching, which is pretty impressive itself. We had good rain gear and enjoyed walking around outside a bit those days.

We stayed in Pismo Beach (to see the butterfly grove), Cambria, and Ragged Point at the southern end of Big Sur. The Elephant Seal Rookery by San Simeon is amazing, as is Hearst Castle, which we saw on a prior visit.

Luckily we never had to drive in heavy rain and decided to stay south of the main Big Sure coast for that reason. San Luis Obispo and Paso Robles could be good inland options in the region.

Great photos from Gardyloo!

Mine are here:
http://nelsonchenkin.zenfolio.com/p487461443

Check the road conditions before setting out and have a Plan B. We once had to divert coming home to LA from east of Sacramento and the Caltrans road conditions report was a big help.
As others have said, we hope we will get rain, sitting here now waiting for a predicted shower that has yet to materialize.
San Diego is a pretty town and should have milder weather.

http://www.dot.ca.gov/cgi-bin/roads.cgi
Forgot to add website and phone number for Caltrans.