California in 10 days
 

Planning a trip to california with family in August. Only have 10 days and would like to go to LA anddrive to San Francisco. Also would like to go to Muir woods or Yosemite. Is that too much to do? Thanks for your help

You can easily do all that in 10 days. We did much more, but we were a bit rushed at times. Insert 'california coast' in the search box and see what pops up. That trip has been discussed several times and I would repeat and leave out things if I tried to do it justice.

My husband and I took 14 days to drive from San Diego to San Francisco. It was an amazing trip! We included Yosemite while we were in San Francisco.
Here is my trip report; it might help you plan!

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34860247

I believe that route #1 from San Luis Obispo up to Carmel is closed at some point, due to a rock slide. You might want to check if its open when you want to drive it. By August it will probably be open again. You can also consider visiting the wine country and Armstrong Woods, rather than Muir woods. Much less crowded... and about 1.5 hrs north of SF. Yosemite in August will be crowded. You'll probably need some sort of reservation.

I think you are going to be burning a lot of gas and spending a lot of time in a car. I would focus on Northern or Southern California and do less driving. Muir Woods is close to SF and easy to do when visiting there. Yosemite is a little father trip. Good luck. We live in Northern Cal so am biased to that area.

Ok! We spent a lot of time in the car on our 10 day trip that followed your route...2000 miles, but that averages only 200 miles a day. Not a stretch for the two of us.

*We started in LA (granted LA was not a high option for us on this trip)
*Overnight in Santa Barbara
*Overnight in San Luis Obispo
*Overnight in Monterey
*2 nights in San Fran
*Overnight in Santa Rosa
*Overnight in Mariposa
*Overnight in Fresno
*Overnight in...can't remember...between Sequoia Natl Forest and LA
*Fly home from LA next night.

We saw Hurst Castle, flower fields in Lompac, Solvang, wonderful views of the Pacific along the Coast Highway, Monterey Pensula, San Fran, Coit Tower, GG Bridge, other things in SF that slip my mind now, Muir Woods, Wine Country, Yosemite, Sequoia, Roy Rogers Musuem in Apple Valley (an accident) and Gene Autry Museum in LA area (a very high class museum, BTW!).

Your trip is do-able!

Just so you know, Muir Woods takes less than an hour and a half to see - it's incredible and the drive up along VERY windy and narrow roads is an adventure in itself. Please don't drop this off your itinerary just because it might take too much time. (Wear layers as it can be cool - there is very little sunlight).

I think that's totallly do-able. 10 days is plenty for a drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco (it's only 12 hours) with stops along the way.

Thanks so much for all your help. I really appreciate it and feel better about doing this with my family. We might stay in San Fran a bit longer.