How to break up trip between San Francisco and Laguna Niguel
 

We will be leaving from San Francisco on a Monday morning in July. May stop in San Jose at Winchester Mystery House (still deciding), but will ultimately join up with PCH. Need to be in Laguna Niguel around dinner time on Wednesday evening. Right now I have a hotel reservation in Monterey on Monday night and a reservation in Arroyo Grande on Tuesday night. Does this seem to be an acceptable way to break up the trip? I'd prefer to stay in Santa Barbara on Tuesday night if possible.

BTW, I think we may end up skipping Heart Castle if that means anything. DH has already been there.

Thoughts are appreciated. Thanks!

Monterey to Santa Barbara is reasonable if you'd rather overnight there. It's about 5 hours of driving if you take Hwy 1 (it's not called PCH up here) through Big Sur.

From another current post:

>> We went down to LaJolla on a Saturday morning last summer from our home in Ventura County and that "3 hour drive" became 6 miserable hours. <<

During the commute hours - the drive might take even longer. La Jolla is about 1 hr short of Laguna Niguel - but most of the traffic delays are in Ventura, LA, and Orange Co. I'm guessing that the best bet is to pass Ventura around 10AM so that you "sneak" in between the morning and afternoon rush commute - if that's even possible. We drove from "north" to Laguna Beach/Niguel last July on a Sunday - and it took a lot longer than I had planned.

Stu Dudley

You don't want to plan to get to Laguna Niguel around dinner time because that means you'll be driving through Los Angeles during very heavy traffic hours.
Leave Santa Barbara after an early lunch/late breakfast, because 1pm to 3pm is the only decent pocket that you'll find on a weekday.

Arroyo Grande is a perfectly acceptable place, but I'd recommend San Luis Obispo or Pismo Beach instead. They should both be pretty close but are nicer locations, in my opinion. San Luis is a college town and had a great downtown farmer's market on Thursday evenings. And Pismo Beach has a beach. :)

Santa Barbara is better than either of those but would be a longer drive - but if you're skipping Hearst Castle, it may be no problem to get there.

So-- I'm thinking if I want to spend any time in Santa Barbara at all (would like to at least visit the mission), maybe we do need to continue driving and not stay in Arroyo Grande, but Santa Barbara instead? That way we can get up, have breakfast,, visit mission and head to Laguna Niguel? Does that sound like a plan?

As an aside, I drive in Chicago traffic every day to work, and still found LA traffic to be the worst nightmare in the world the last time we were there in 2010. Ugh.

Cadgirl - if it were me I'd drive on to Santa Barbara. And you'll be that much closer to Laguna Niguel when you leave.

I would skip the Winchester MH and spend my time in Monterey/Carmel. Between the MH and Hearst Castle I would pick HC a million times over. The Castle has several different tours and is really cool, you may want to reconsider and stop for one of them. I agree to go on to Santa Barbara, and your plan to visit the mission early and then tackle LA during non rush hour time (relatively speaking) is a good one. Good luck and have fun!