Help with itinerary in California - Coast, Yosemite and San Francisco
 

Dear all,
I am going to a meeting in Huntington beach, with my wife. We will rent a car and shall leave H. Beach on Wednesday 14th march in the morning. Our itinerary is as follows:
- March 14th and 15th: driving through the coast, on the way to Yosemite Park, and visiting Santa Barbara, Big Sur and Carmel.
- March 16th and 17th: 2 nights at the Yosemite Park
- March 18th to 21th: 4 nights in San Francisco
- March 22th evening: flight to Los Angeles
- March 23rd in the morning: flight back home

I would like your advice about it. I have some questions:
- Should I sleep one more night at the Yosemite Park? IIf yes, would you reduce one night in SFO or on the way to Yosemite?
- Should I drive back to Los Angeles, from San Francisco, or take the plane? As I am flying international on the day after, I might have some problems with bags allowance.

Any other inputs, please? Thanks a lot for your help.
gpm

If you are renting the car in Los Angeles, continue on up the coast from your Santa Barbara stop and go to San Francisco first for only 3 days. From SF head to Yosemite. From Yosemite, head back to Los Angeles to turn in the rental car and fly home from LA. No sense to turn in a rental car and still fly into LAX to fly home.

Thanks. I prefer to go first to Yosemite as we shall meet some friends in S. Francisco later on. The other option would be to rent a car again and then drive to LA, fly back to LA or to stay the whole time with the car, even in San Francisco.. What do you think?

IMO, there is almost nothing interesting to see along the coast between Huntington Beach and about Malibu. Just get on the San Diego freeway instead and head north as fast as possible. When we lived in Newport Beach & Laguna Beach (next to Huntington Beach) we never "hugged" the coast going north - we just proceeded to San Louis Obispo on the freeway & then did the lovely coast drive to Carmel.

We were in Yosemite last year in March & had a heavy snow. All but 1 access to Yosemite was closed due to the snow.

Here are my San Francisco ideas:
http://www.fodors.com/community/unit...mendations.cfm

Stu Dudley

Reverse Tom Fuller's itinerary. Drive directly to Yosemite, then SF, and then down the coast along highway 1.

Good idea Michael. The right turns into the viewpoints along the coast are safer. After you have seen enough of the coast, head over to I-5 for a faster route back to Los Angeles.

Agree with Michael.

Can you drive to Yosemite on the 14th?

Move San Francisco to the 17th through the 20th.

Then spend the next two days going down south along the coast from SF to LA.

You really don't need a car in SF, so find lodging that will give you free parking (which would be quite a feat!).

There's no point in flying between SF and LA, you'll save yourself only a couple of hours at the most with a lot more hassle.

<i>You really don't need a car in SF, so find lodging that will give you free parking (which would be quite a feat!). </i>

Along the ocean one can find free parking on the streets. There are motels near the zoo and near the end of the N-Judah MUNI line.

I would pick the N-Judah line area because the MUNI goes through a more interesting neighborhood (Upper Sunset/Cole Valley area) with restaurant possibilities.

Michael and I have "agreed to disagree" on this issue on a number of occasions - I think staying by the ocean in San Francisco would be a terrible location for a first-time visitor. It's an hour to downtown by public transit, not to mention generally the worst weather in the city.

Do your friends in SF have a driveway or garage you could use for a day or two? You could also find a hotel in Oakland or Berkley with free parking and take BART into the city.

No, they do not have parking. I might drive to SFO and give the car back, and then rent the car again to do SFO-LAX. Another option is to try to flight back home from SFO, instead of LAX. Will try.

Another question: do you think 3 days (2 nights) at Yosemite are OK? I know I could spend a month there, but wonder if 3 days would be enough to scratch the surface...

Would you consider staying at any of the 3 HI Hostels in San Francisco? http://www.hihostels.com/dba/list.php?lang=E
They don't say anything about parking but are really the cheapest option for staying in the city. There are also nice hostels in Marin Headlands and at Point Reyes. By all means visit Muir Woods north of San Francisco.
Yosemite to me is a place to go back to several times in your lifetime. 3 days is a great start.

>>do you think 3 days (2 nights) at Yosemite are OK? I know I could spend a month there, but wonder if 3 days would be enough to scratch the surface...<<

Yep - plenty of time if you will be there in mid March. I correct myself in my first post - we were there in early April, not March. When we were there, the trails were not accessible because of the snow (we had a heavy snow last year - but not this year). It snowed while we were there. So not much hiking around was possible. The roads Glacier Point, Wawona, and Tioga pass were all closed.

Stu Dudley

Great. Thanks again.
Do I need to have snow chains for my vehicle? I will rent a car and asked Hertz if they could provide it, but they say they can not. Looking at Yosemite website, they say it can be mandatory... What are the odds for mid-March?
If I need them, shall I buy it near the park? Or rent them?
I have another option to decide the itinerary: forget about my LAX flight (would buy it with my mileage) and buy a ticket San Francisco-Mexico City; then I would fly from Mexico City to Brazil (I can have this ticket with mileage, but can not find any places on the SFO-Mexico). This way, I could do:
- March 14: leave Huntington Beach, sleeping in Santa Barbara (for example)
- March 15: sleep in Carmel
- March 16, 17 and 18: sleep at Yosemite Park
- March 19, 20, 21, 22: sleep in SFO
- March 23 in the morning: fly SFO-Mexico: it will cost me more money (250 USD each, more some extra for the bags...) but could save me time.

My friends will be in SFO from the 21st to the 23rd: this is why I prefer to end my trip there...
Thanks again for your help!

If you could drive overnight on I-5 you can drive the rental car from San Francisco to LAX in 6 hours (385 miles).
Do you live in northern Mexico?

No, I live in Brazil. The only flight I found with FF miles was Mexico-São Paulo

I would cut a night from Yosemite and add it to Carmel/Monterey. 2 nights in Yosemite will be fine this time of year. There will be more to do around Carmel/Monterey/Big Sur right now, the weather has been very pleasant. Look into connecting thru Dallas to SP. or check LAN for connections thru Lima.

We purchased our chains at a gas station just outside of Yosemite. I don't think that there is any place to purchase them withing the park - plus if they are needed it would probably be to get into the park. We ended up not needing them, but we were required to put them on when we got to Sequoia Natl Park a day later. At the entrance to Yosemite, they asked us if we had chains when we entered the park. We said we did, but I don't know what they would have done if we said we didn't have any. You are pretty much on your own to secure chains. Just before we left home near San Francisco for Yosemite, I ran a thread on Fodors and the consensus was that I would be refused entrance to Yosemite if there was a chance that they were needed.

Right now, we are having unseasonably warm & dry weather and the forecast is for the same for the remainder of this week.

I agree with MichelleY - add a day to Carmel and spend 1 less night in Yosemite - especially in March.

Stu Dudley

sf7307,

It is a question of choosing cost versus location. Moreover, quite a few sights in SF are halfway between the downtown area and Ocean Beach: Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park with the de Young Museum and the Academy of Sciences, The Palace of the Legion of Honor, and the Exploratorium.

On your revised itinerary, as I see it, you will picking up a car in Los Angeles and dropping it off in San Francisco.

It's usually cheaper to pick-up and drop-off in the same location. Otherwise, you will have to check into drop-off fees for a different city than the pick-up city. If you're lucky, the rental agency will charge no drop-off fee - or the fees could range up to several hundred dollars.

The HI hostel in "Fisherman's Wharf" is a great suggestion. The hostel is actually in Fort Mason and you get free parking in a lovely location. You will, most likely, want to have a car for at least a day in SF - to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge, for example.