Our California itinerary -- the basics
 

A few months back I posted a query for California coast drive suggestions. My hubs and I are taking our kids on a coastal drive this summer, and our oldest will visit two schools he's interested in: Stanford and USC. We have three kids. They're 16, 14 and 9. Great travelers and adventurers.

Here's our outine, with few details. Any suggestions you make will be greatly appreciated. I have perused guidebooks and done much research, but it's always good to hear opinions.

Day 1 – Fly to Sacramento and rent car; drive to Garberville and stay at Humboldt House Best Western

Day 2 – Explore Avenue of the Giants, Humboldt State Park; stay at Humboldt House Best Western

Day 3– Drive to Mendocino and spend part of day there; then drive to Santa Rosa, sightseeing and exploring on the way.

Day 4 – Breakfast with relatives in Santa Rosa, then to San Francisco

Day 5 – Tour Stanford. Do other stuff, depending on what time tour is (can't book until May)

Day 6 – Spend day in SF area

Day 7 – Drive to Monterey; need to plan day. Want to see aquarium

Day 8 -- Drive to Santa Barbara; need to plan day. Kids love the TV show "Psych," so they want to see SB.

Day 9 – Drive to Los Angeles; tour USC at 1 p.m. (already booked) Rest of day open

Day 10 – Breakfast with LA relatives; maybe do some stuff in LA (although recently visited.) Thinking we'll drive to San Diego. We're staying there that night because we fly out from there the next day.

Day 11 – Depart San Diego for home

Sounds good to me. The only question is whether you might want to flip days 5 and 6 , and stay closer to Palo Alto on night 6, , since you'll be that much closer to Monterey. But that's no big deal really, just a 35-mile difference.

The Monterey aquarium takes several hours to see. If you have any time left over, I would recommend Point Lobos State Reserve, and the Pacific Grove coastal hike/bike trail. I assume you are taking the beautiful Hwy 1 coastal drive from Monterey to Santa Barbara thru Big Sur.

The historic Missions in San Luis Obispo, Lompoc, Santa Barbara and Ventura are worth a visit if you enjoy CA history. Also, it will take longer, but from Mendocino drive Highway 1 south rather than turning inland to 101 and visit Ft. Ross State Historic Park, a old Russian fort and settlement.

Man, your schedule is way too aggressive. The kids will love spending every day, all day, in the car.

It's 200 miles to SF from Garberville.

My take is to not go all the way to Garberville for the
drive-by of the redwoods, and go to Muir Woods in Marin, just north of SF.

Unless you're flying in to SAC for some reason, don't.

Fly into SFO and spend your time in the Bay Area.

If your son is good enough to get into Stanford, then he will be blown away by the Campus. Stanford is a much smaller school than USC, and in a beautiful location.

Before Stanford became a football powerhouse, the story always went that when Stanford played USC and lost, not to worry, the Stanford players would become the bosses of the USC players in 5 years or so. Old local joke.

California is a heck of a lot bigger than folks from other states realize. So, check your maps thoroughly before you make final decisions.

Thanks for the suggestions. We want to see the Avenue of the Giants, so that's not negotiable.

Definitely taking the coastal highway when possible.

We will be spending time in the car but always making frequent breaks. We love road trips.

Suggest that you expand the college visits to both USC and UCLA in Southern California.

USC may be the private college, but it's in a terrible part of town; whereas UCLA, although the state college, is in a much more wealthier part of LA and is relatively so much safer. Personally, I also think the UCLA campus is prettier than the USC one.

Of course, THE most beautiful campus in Los Angeles is the Pepperdine campus in Malibu. :)

im with most others, youre 11 day schedule is too hectic. a vacation is meant to be relaxing. youll want to spend more than one day in san francisco. ..san fran in itself could easily take a few days. so much to see and do there.

as far as aquarium of the bay in monterrey, its rather expensive, and while there is limited free parking in some areas, the local residents are more acclimated to know the ins and outs of where these parking spots are located and when its best to grab them, etc.

but anyways, your itenerary is too aggressive to be anything close to relaxing. discard either sacramento or san francisco and save the other for a future trip. many of the destinations youre listing as just a single day can actually take longer than that with traffic congestion, unforseen delays due to construction, etc. ,..weather, or any other event youre not setting aside extra time for in case something out of the norm arises.

osakaorchid: they are flying into and out of Sacramento only and haven't indicated any interest in visiting Sacramento, which, unfortunately, isn't worth "saving...for a future trip".

sorry, correction, they are flying into Sacramento and out of San Diego.

I appreciate everyone saying this is "aggressive," but knowing my family, it's doable.

We're not looking for relaxing -- we just went to NW Florida for several days on the beach. This is something my kids requested -- to drive down the coast of California. This is what they want to do. I actually would rather have gone to Yellowstone, but we plan trips as a family. That said, we have only so many days to do it in because of my husband's work schedule and my own class schedule -- I'm in graduate school -- not to mention the kids' summer activities.

I think everyone's idea of vacation is different -- it's not really a good idea to project your wants and needs on anyone else's.

I'm just wanting suggestions for things to see on the way -- things you wouldn't want to miss. I appreciate the UCLA suggestion. I'll talk to my son about that.