This is a follow-up to my previous post (http://tinyurl.com/3yr32r). (Short version: We're a couple in our late 20s spending 9 days driving from San Francisco to San Diego this July.) I've been hemming and hawing, and I think I'd like to adjust my itinerary as easytraveler suggested in that post.

That would mean:
Day 3: SF to Monterey (maybe visit Henry Cowell on the way), 17 mile drive, hike Pt Lobos, walk around downtown Carmel (if time is available; we'd prefer to see the natural sights than spend time touring the town), dinner in Carmel, drive to Big Sur Lodge

Day 4: Hikes at Pfeiffer Big Sur and Julia Pfeiffer Burns (~2 hours, I think), leisurely drive to Cambria for Hearst Castle tour, dinner in Cambria, spend the night in Cambria or Santa Barbara (???)

The trouble is this. According to easytraveler: "On Hearst Castle, if on the Big Sur hiking day you were to skip Limekiln if that would prove to be too much, you could arrive in Cambria for the evening tour of Hearst Castle. But then you would have to spend that night in Cambria, leaving a longer drive the next day to Santa Monica."

I'd really prefer to have a shorter drive to Santa Monica in the morning so as to maximize our time in that area, but I also don't want to miss out on visiting Hearst Castle. It looks like the last tour of the day at Hearst is 4:20. If we do the two shorter hikes at the two Pfeiffer parks, then take an unhurried, sight-seeing drive up to Cambria, would we be safe in expecting to arrive at 4:20 (barring unforeseen problems!) and to be finished with our tour by 6:20? If we eat a quick dinner in Cambria, I'm thinking we could make it to Santa Barbara no later than 10:00 and (if we make our hotel -- I'm currently looking at the Holiday Inn Express Santa Barbara -- aware of our planned arrival time) spend the night there.

Does that sound manageable, or will we be absolutely dead exhausted after such a day?

You should figure a minimum of 2.5 hours and maybe closer to 3 from Cambria to SB if you get up to the 101 rather than following Highway 1 down to San Luis Obispo. Sounds like a long, but doable day.

There is no reason why you would need to drive from Cambria east on the 46 to the 101 and then south to the 101, in fact, you'd be going out of your way to do so.

From Cambria, stay on the 1 south and it will bring you through Los Osos and connect with the 101 south.

I believe you are trying to cram way too much into your trip. For example, Day 3: SF to Monterey takes at least 2 hours, more like three, especially if you take Hwy. 1. If you spend 1 hour at Henry Cowell, and 1 hour at Pt. Lobos (very nice), you have already spent four-five hours of your day. Walking around Carmel (including Carmel Beach!) is another hour, and driving to Big Sur takes at least another 1.5- 2.0 hours. Sounds like torture not pleasure. Day 4 also tries to cram about 12 hours of activities into one day: Do-able, but is that how you want to spend your vacation? I recommend you start by admitting the possibility that you may be back to California one day and you need not do everything in one trip. As someone once said, slow down and smell the roses. Yet, as someone else once said "Chaque a son gout." (To each, his/her own). Whatever you chose, have a great trip.

HI, RedPanda!

Nice to see your plans coming together!

Your day 3 seems fine. You'll enjoy walking around downtown Carmel. But if not, you could just get over to Carmel Beach which is a lovely strip of beach and walk there.

Day 4 really depends on you. If you are early risers and hike a lot, you could start out at Pfeiffer Big Sur and do the hike to Pfeiffer Falls, say, between 8-9am in the morning. Then you could drive down and do the Julie Pfeiffer Burns hike to the waterfall. The rest of the way southbound is the part of Big Sur where you should not hurry. Bring a sack lunch and eat it along the way. If you get to Limekiln by 11am or noon, you should be able to do the hike to the waterfall. Give yourself about two hours for this.

Then on to Cambria and the Hearst Castle tour.

In July, at 6:30pm there will still be plenty of daylight. I'd suggest that you continue on down to Santa Barbara and spend the night there.

By the time you reach Cambria you will have the most twisty part of Highway 1 behind you and so should be able to travel even after dark. Not too far after Cambria the road becomes a four-lane freeway all the way to Santa Monica. Stop for dinner halfway in San Luis Obispo or further south at Pisno/Grover/etc. Beach. You should be in Santa Barbara around 10:30 or 11pm.

Sleep in. Start out the next morning around 9:30 or 10 am to miss the traffic. This should get you into Santa Monica around noon of Day 5.

I'm getting excited for you! Have a great trip!

Thanks for the responses! We appreciate the specific advice on directions and drive times, boom_boom and onemoneygirl.

zorrosf: Not to worry, I'm well aware that these are very packed days. They'll probably be the 2 busiest days (in terms of number of specific activities planned) of the trip. But I'm not expecting to hit absolutely everything mentioned, especially on Day 3 -- really, Pt. Lobos and the drive to Big Sur Lodge are the only must-do's on that day as far as I'm concerned. Everything else will be up to how we feel.

easytraveler: Thanks again for the detailed advice! Your recommendations for Day 4 sound a lot like what I was thinking, right down to the sack lunch. I do think we'll most likely have to miss Limekiln (for various reasons), but we'll see how early we get up and how we're feeling by that point.

Your advice to sleep in to miss the traffic the next morning is well taken, and I think there's no doubt we'll be doing just that! We're both very excited now about the trip -- July can't get here soon enough.