tou44

I am staying in CAlifornia for a week.
I flying into Sf and staying for 2days.
My wife wants to go to Monterey,and Wine country. PLus she wants to go to Yosemite. Will we have time for this without being rushed all the time. Personally I have tried to tell her so.
If so would you recommend Yosemite over these or can we do all this. Myself I always wanted to go to Yosemite. She's being a real pain with this.
Thanks

lyb

If you want to be extremely tired and see all these places at a fast speed, go for it. In all seriousness, there's no way that you can do it all in a week and truly enjoy yourself. You could do Monterey and the wine country from SF, but in one week, that's a lot. Yosemite is at least a 4 - 5 hour drive from San Francisco, basically, most of the day and one day there, one day back.....I'm not one to discourage people who want to do a lot on their vacation, IF it is geographicallty possible, but in this case....I STRONGLY advise against it.

salgal

We are going in MAy and our plan is to fly into San Fran spend a couple of days, then drive to YOsemite (from what we hear, it is about 3 hours), spend a couple days in Yosemite, then drive down to Monterey, spend a couple of days, and the back up to San Fran to fly out. We are doing sort of a "triangle" tour. We decided to skip wine country this time. Will save it for another time.

lyb

Tou44 & SalGal,

Believe me, I've gone to Yosemite from Sacramento & I've lived in Northern California for 15 years....it will NOT take you only 3 hours from Yosemite to San Francisco, 4 hours minimum. According to MapQuest, it takes 225 minutes, that's 3.75 hours, from the San Francisco Airport. So if you are staying in the city, you can add another 30 minutes or more. Perhaps, if you don't intend to stop for bathroom breaks, eating, etc...

tou44

Dear SALGAL
That is exactly what we planning to do.
I think we are going to have to skip Yosemite.Even if I crossed off Wine trip I still think it is too much based on what people have said.

I did something like that last year when I went Las Vegas.
My wife have the brillant idea to go to the Grand Canyon.
Never again will I do something like that. Talk about a long drive!!!!
And this seems like one of those trip again

Underhill

One more thought about visiting Yosemite: depending on when you'd like to go, lodgings could be at a premium or even unavailable; they're booked far in advance. It might be best to save that beautiful spot for a time when you could get everything set up well in advance.

But if it's soon, you would have the joy of seeing the falls in full flood, as the snow pack this year was extremely wet and the runoff is excellent.

kimamom

It would be great if you could see Monterey, the Wine Country & Yosemite. You should make a final decision quickly so you have a nice choice of lodging. Could you possibly extend your trip for a couple of more days so you don't have to rush through things?

I love Monterey and the Wine Country both. I've been to Yosemite so much, it's becoming "been there, done that" which I never feel in either Monterey/Carmel or the Wine Country. We just returend from the Sonoma/Healdsubrg area and are planning our next trip in May to the Napa Valley. California is wonderful!

Then there's the central coast. Don't you want to see Cambria/Hearst Castle also? LOL ***kim*** Headed there next weekend!!!!

togowest

We did this trip a few years ago. The difference is we spent just one night in SFO. Arrived early enough on a Sat. to take the cable cars to Fisherman's Wharf for dinner, met friends for a drink, spent the next morning walking around and by early afternoon were headed for Monterey. Spent two nights there exploring coast and Carmel and then two nights at Yosemite. From there we headed to Napa for two nights. Next morning we headed back toward SF. Had dinner in Sausalito and stayed at airport hotel. Sunday we were headed back home.

I resisted planning the trip this way, but have to say we had a very good time. The driving was fun and often very scenic. Everyone got to see what they wanted and everyone had a favorite part of the tip. My husband loved the Monterrey area, I'm a fan of Yosemite, and my sister and BIL wanted the Napa part included. It can be done - but you definitely just hit the high spots.