June Gloom - planning 25th Anniversary
 

I am trying to plan our 25th for early July, starting on the 5th for a week or so. We want to tour SF, Sonoma, Carmel, Big Sur, Santa Barbara and end up in Santa Monica. Did I pick a bad time of the year to get married 24 years ago? I don't want to have a vacation that if fog riddled raining every day. My wife is an avid photographer and gloomy shots won't make her happy. Looking for opinions from those who know.
Thanks in advance

well - you can forget about the "raining" bit. You can be fairly certain you won't see a drop of rain.

Fog is a different matter. But even the gloom doesn't happen every day and usually burns off by afternoon.

The hotter it is inland, generally the cooler/foggier it is on the coast. So what you want to wish for is a cool spell in the central valley - then it will probably be gorgeous on the coast. But if we are having high 90's-low 100's in the Valley - then you'll usually have 60's and fog on the SF/Big Sur coast.

One comment though - IMO a week is too short to see SF, Sonoma, Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur, Santa Barbara and Santa Monica.

You can very easily fill a week w/ either SF/Sonoma/Carmel/Big Sur -- <b>or</b> -- Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, Paso Robles area wineries and <i>maybe</i> Big Sur.

One or the other would make a great one-week trip. Otherwise you'd have one-night stand after one-night stand after one-night stand and not have time to stop and &quot;see&quot; much.

Thanks for the feedback.

We had a tentative schedule that went like this:

Day 1 Arrive SFO - Alcatraz night tour
Day 2 Sonoma
Day 3 SF sights
Day 4 Drive to Carmel
Day 5 Big Sur
Day 6 Drive to Santa Barbara
Day 7 Wine tour
Day 8 play in Santa Barbara - Drive to Santa Monica
Day 9 - Santa Monica -maybe Getty
Day 10 Depart LAX

It would probably be easy to eliminate the Santa Barbara/Santa Monica leg of the trip but we both want to see SF and Carmel. Planning to stay at the Mandarin in SF and the Lodge at Pebble. Any suggestions are welcome.

Ok - now you are talking 10 days which is more doable than a week.

But a couple of comments -- I'd personally choose one wine region. Picking either Sonoma or the Santa Barbara/Santa Ynez area will give you more time for other things. And try to cut down on 1 nighters - 3 nights SF, 2 nights in Carmel/Monterey, 1 night in or just south of Big Sur, 2 nights near Santa Barbara and then finally Santa Monica would be a nice division IMO.

Look into the hotels you're contemplating between SF and Santa Monica. In the summer (especially at/near a holiday weekend), many hotels have minimum-night requirements Thursday to Sunday.