bucky

Does anyone know about how much time it would take to drive from Hearst Castle to the area near San Francisco Airport? This would be on a Friday afternoon (4/2). We will tour the castle in early afternoon and then take 101 to a hotel near the airport. (Flight leaves around noon Saturday). Don't want to be driving after dark, although not sure what time the sun will be setting at beginning of April.

Underhill

You're looking at about a six-hour drive, depending on the traffic. Friday afternoon unfortunately means lots of traffic, and I don't know that you will make the airport before dark if you have an early afternoon tour of Hearst Castle. That would really be pushing it.

Treck

On a Friday afternoon you're looking at about a 5 hour drive. If you have an afternoon tour, tere will be no way to avoid driving in the dark, unless you stopped off for the night in San Jose and head to the SF airport from there the next morning, which would probably be a better idea anyway. There's quite a bit to do around the hotels in Downtown San Jose. There isn't much around the SF airport if your looking to just walk around or for a place to eat.

johncharles

Bucky, you're not going to get to an airport area hotel before dark. If you dislike or don't feel safe driving after dark, that's one thing, but if it's just that you don't want to miss scenery, what there's to see on 101 the last third or so of the way to the airport is so much less interesting than what you'll see earlier in the day that you shouldn't feel bad about missing it. And (unlike Hwy. 1 along the coast, or highway 17 connecting 1 and 101,) 101 in the area you'll be travelling at night is well lighted, straight and fast.

kerikeri

according to a website i just found, sunset will be at 7:36 or so starting with dst on april 4. figure dusk/twilight for about an hour more, so "daylight" will cease about 8:20 or so and complete darkness by 9pm.

jwc

I have driven that route many times including Friday afternoon. The traffic will be horrendous when you hit the San Jose Metro area. Count on at least 6 hours.

johncharles

Bucky, if you take an afternoon tour at Hearst Castle--and by the way, I would strongly recommend taking more than one of the several differeny tours offered there--but even if you take only one, you will be leaving there fairly late in the afternoon, later than you'd guess, and you will not hit San Jose until after rush hour. There's not much point in staying in downtown San Jose--it's only a half hour more up to the airport. If you're truly a "morning person," or if you consider driving at night unsafe or really unpleasant, you might want to consider breaking up your drive up from the Castle more or less equally by staying along 101 somewhere well south of San Jose (in which case you will be able to stop before dark--it will be dark by the time you reach San Jose) and getting up at dawn to enjoy what should be a fast and easy drive early Saturday morning up to the airport. Not being too much of a morning person and not minding driving at night, and wanting to be free of any stress about getting to the airport early enough, for myself I'd probably choose to push on and spend the night near the airport as you had tentatively planned.

Hann

I agree with the others that it will not be possible to reach SF airport by the time it gets dark. I do agree with the sugestion of staying in Downtown San Jose. San Jose is at least an hour from SF airport. I wouldn't stay south of San Jose because there is nothing but farmland in areas south of the city such as Morgan Hill, Gilroy, Salinas,etc. As such there would be nothing to do there. Downtown San Jose has very good nightlife, good dinign options, etc. Another idea would be to go up to Santana Row Mall at Stevens Creek and Winchester. The Hotel Valencia there nice. Downtown San Jose and Santana Row are both quite busy, especially on the weekends.

Underhill

If you decide to break your trip rather than going straight through to the SF airport, you might consider the charming little town of Los Gatos. (The Garden Inn is a nice place to stay and not a budget-breaker.) You could leave in the morning and head up 280, then cut across to the airport rather than driving on 101 all the way.

bucky

Thanks for all the advice. I'm actually toying with the idea of skipping Hearst Castle/night in Morro Bay and just dividing the week's trip between Monterey peninsula and San Francisco. That way, we wouldn't have to change hotels 4 times in one week (remember, we are traveling with 2 teens) and we could still see Big Sur but just backtrack to sleep in Monterey rather than driving all the way down to Morro. I know Morro is pretty, and Hearst Castle sounds interesting, but with only one week, I want to relax a bit. Not sure if it's worth it to drive all that way for one night in Morro and a tour of Hearst the next morning before heading back to the area near San Fran airport.

If the weather's good, we can do a lot of stuff outdoors at Point Lobos, Big Sur...and if it's bad, sounds like there's plenty to do around Monterey, such as aquarium, missions. Any comments?

bucky

Or, (pardon me for thinking out loud), we could take one night off our San Francisco portion (Currently booked Sat, Sun, Mon) and spend that extra night in Morro to loosen things up at that end. I think two nights in San Francisco would be plenty since we are not shoppers or museum goers (at least not when our teens are with us), except for the fact that we absolutely have to see Berkeley campus with my 17 year old, who dreams of going there someday (right, dream on!) We land around noon on Saturday march 27 and leave around noon the following saturday.

SAB

I'm sure those who post that SF is a small town that can be seen easily in a couple of days or less, will recommend that you only stay the 2 nights. However if you are planning on spending a day in Berkeley you will in fact only have one full day in SF assuming you visit Berkeley on the Monday before you leave to drive down the coast. If you go to Berkeley on the Sunday, then you will only have Saturday afternoon, whatever part of Sunday not spent in Berkeley and Monday morning in SF. To each their own, but that doesn't seem to be much time to do much more than take a quick look around. My recommendation, if I was giving one to a friend, would be to not drive all the way to Hearst, but to spend more time on the Monterey Pennisula and avoid the necessity of spending a night near the airport--SFO is easily reachable on Saturday morning from Monterey.