coast drive from Seattle to San Francisco
 

Just starting to plan a possible drive and wondering if a good time to go to avoid crowds would be the end of August/first of September. This has generally been a good time for us to visit National Parks etc. since school is starting. We would really like to not have to make reservations along the way.

For Oregon, no, this is still high season on our coast. Especially around Labor Day as that is very popular with families as school doesn't start until after that. All of September is still considered high season here as that is when we have some of our best weather.

For most parts of the coast, September has the best weather of the entire year. So that is when more locals try to visit. You can still manage w/o booking everything - but many nice coastal properties will have a two night minimum on weekends. And around Labor Day can be very crowded most anywhere.

If there are specific places you want to stay - book ahead.

If my dates were flexible, I would start this trip on September 8 or 9.

HTtY

Our dates are definitely flexible. And we don't need to start on a weekend. In fact flights are generally better on Tuesday through Thursday from here. So what I am getting from you is that after Labor Day would be better than sometime in the 2 weeks before that holiday. I'll make reservations (after I start researching more of what we want to do)for the first nights, but while going down the coast we will probably just stay overnight so it doesn't really matter how nice the property is. And we have family in the San Francisco area and have been there and are very familiar with it, so I will make reservations there for the end of our trip. We'd just like to be flexible on our way down the coast if possible with lodging.

Thanks for the replies -- very helpful.

Tu Tu Tun in Gold Beach

Probably one of the key elements for you to consider is the cancellation policies.

If you can book yourself ahead of time into some places which may/may not be available later but which will give you the flexibility of cancelling out should you decide later not to stay there - that would be the best option.

For some properties it's not too early to book now.

Could you give us some idea of how many days you will have?