My husband and I have just started to plan a trip to travel the Pacific Coast Highway. We have a total of 9 days, including travel time from Nashville Tn. We were thinking of starting in Oregon and ending in Morro Bay. What is the best starting point and best time of year for the trip? Also tips for best places to visit along the way.... I have just started researching, so not sure if this is too much to try to do in our time frame. Would love to hear from you!!

You're probably better off referring to the entire section as either "traveling along the coast of Oregon and California" or Highway1/Highway 101, as "Pacific Coast Highway" refers to that section in Southern California which is south of where you want to end up.

My suggestion is to fly to PDX (earlier the better). Drive over US 26 to hit US 101 and drive south to Cannon Beach to spend the night. See Haystack Rock. Head south on 101 all the way to Brookings Oregon which takes about 7 hours plus any stops that you make at viewpoints. The next day will include a short drive in the Redwoods near Crescent City and maybe a stop at the "Trees of Mystery" but only if it is not raining. You should be able to make it to Muir Woods north of San Francisco before sunset. The next day you will be driving through San Francisco as far as Moro Bay. Coming back from Moro Bay you will want to come up I-680 to I-80, I-505 to get on I-5 spending a night in the Redding or Mt. Shasta area. If you get back to PDX early enough take the time to head east on I-84 to see Multnomah Falls. The parking area is in the median so it is easy to get back to westbound I-84 back to the airport. The view of the Columbia Gorge is fantastic from the top of Multnomah Falls.

If you haven't read them yet - there are al lot of posts in here under Oregon and Cal about what you are contemplating.

Personally - I prefer the area just south of Lincoln City - at Depot Bay - for the first night - and the Surfrider is up on the hill overlooking the ocean and whales when in season.

http://www.surfriderresort.com/

From there - you can continue on down the coast to say Gold Beach and take the Jet Boasts up the fabled Rogue River - and even go inland to Crater Lake if you want to see that beauttiful wonder.

From there - you can decide if you want to go down the Northern Cal Coast - or head on further south to SF and then on down to say Carmel/Monterrey - and Big Sur.

Please clarify . . . "<blue>We have a total of 9 days, including travel time from Nashville Tn.</blue>" . . . Do you mean flying into Oregon and home from central California (pretty hectic but doable) - OR - - It more sounds like you intend to drive out and back (just not realistic)

Where will you go after Morro Bay?

We plan to fly into Oregon and out of California . Just started planning, so really appreciate all the ideas. Our anniversary is October 9th and always plan a special trip to celebrate. Is early October a good time to do this drive? Love ideas on great places to stay along the way! Thanks

Not sure about Oregon, but for the California portion of this trip, that time of year would be great. I really don't think your have time for all the ground you want to cover, unless you do a lot of one nighters and spend most of you time in the car. I would either concentrate on the Oregon portion or fly into, say, San Francisco and spend your time in N. Calif. down to Morro Bay.

Oregon usually has good weather in October - but you can always get a storm/early snow. However - along the Coast the roads will be clear - even if moving a bit slower in the rain - as will the main Freeway - I-5.

Hey - now living in San Diego - I do miss rainstorms, but not having to do a lot of commuting during them.

We plan to fly... out of California." Check your flight options. San Luis Obispo is close to Morro Bay, but your routing back to Tennessee from SLO will involve a connection somewhere and probably two airlines. You might be able to connect in Phoenix, but flights are limited. If you connect in LAX or SFO, give yourselves time to change terminals.

If it were my trip and I had 9 days, I'd likely drive Portland to San Francisco and leave the rest of the California coast for another trip.

You could simply head on down to LA from Morro Bay (4? hours) - or even back to SF if necessary.

And I think you can do both - especially if you love seeing beautiful scenery pass by.

nine days is not very much for Oregon and even just that half of California.

The coastal drive is amazing but slow. And one night stops over and over get old. Plus many places on the CA coast require two night stays at least on weekends.

W/ just 9 days and traveling across the country (so in reality only about 7.5 days free 'on the ground') I'd either:

1) do a bit of Oregon and down the CA coast as far as SF and fly home from SFO

or 2) Fly into SFO, see some of the coast north of there and maybe a bit of Napa/Sonoma, then down the coast to Carmel/Big Sur/Morro Bay. back track to SFO to fly home or drive down the coast and fly out of LAX.

Either of these would more than fill your 7+ days.

Thank you for all the suggestions!! Has given me a great start... Will get guide books in the mail in a couple of days and will spend many hours on my IPad as I plan this trip. Planning and putting it all together is almost as much fun as the trip! Just got back from a fantastic trip to Italy and I worked on it for a year!! I am sure I will have more questions as I research... Thanks again for getting me started!!

The route that I laid out in my first post is about 1950 miles in about 35 hours of driving time which you should be able to cover in six driving days.
I think you want to avoid a rental car drop off fee in California. It is easy enough to drive back from Moro Bay to PDX in 2 days perhaps with a quick trip around Crater Lake on the way back to Portland.

" . . . to cover in six driving days" The operable word being >>drivingaverage 55mph on the CA coast.

First timers -- you'd mainly see everything through the windshield passing by. The only fast road is I-5 up the central Valley. (And it is REALLY fast but not fast enough to raise your average to 55 over the full trip. . .)

You can make decent time on the Coast Hiways - while enjoying the scenery.

If you want to save some time - from Southern Oregon/Northern California - jump on I-5 and zip all the way down to San Francisco (where you can average 70 mph)- or if you don't want to get caught in their denser traffic routes - keep on going down I-5 and then cut over to the coast to Carmel/Monterrey from Stockton. Here is one way: http://www.distancebetweencities.net...armel_ca/route

Here is how I would do it:

From Portland - head over to Lincoln City (2 hours plus) and then spend the night just south of there at Depot Bay (see Surfrider - mentioned above).

Next day - explore a bit (pick up some great saltwater taffy) and then make your way down to either Bandon Dunes or Gold Beach, about 5 hours of driving along the beautiful Oregon Coast to Gold Beach - but you can also take nice breaks along the way - such as maybe lunch in Florence - and enjoy some great seafood. http://theoregoncoast.info/Distance/DepoeBay.html

From Gold Beach - after perhaps taking a jetboat up the fabled Rogue River - http://www.wildspring.com/jetboats.htm you could continue on south - across the Cal border - and see some big Redwoods by Crescent City (Jedidiah Smith - http://www.yelp.com/biz/jedediah-smi...-crescent-city ) - or you could head inland from Gold Beach to the cute college town of Ashland and use that as a base to see Crater Lake - assuming the roads are open. http://www.nps.gov/crla/index.htm

Then - if you went to the Redwoods - I would cut over to Redding (or from Ashland - hop on I-5) - and motor on down to Carmel/Monterrey - (6 plus hrs driving? from Redding) - and spend the rest of your time there and on down the Cal Coast, especially taking in the sights at Big Sur. http://tinyurl.com/d54edq2

You can judge for yourself how much time to spend along the way - and then wind up in Morro Bay at the end.

I would be most worried about your rental car drop-off fees.

Try and see what it would cost to do two rentals - one out of (and return to) Portland and the other out of San Francisco. Fly between the two cities. Unless you have a huge group of people, you may find that doing it this way - provided you make your reservations early enough - would work better without those long stretches of driving, which you really don't have time to do on such a short trip.

I-5 may be the fastest way but it's boring in the California portion until you reach Mt Shasta area, then, once you're in the mountains, it's a lot of curvy mountain roads in Oregon, which takes a lot of concentration, so really not the most relaxing. You really don't want to end up a nice trip like this with potentially one/both of you ending up a bundle of taut nerves.

I'm sensing that you want a nice, leisurely trip, so you need to take the curvy roads slowly, both along the coast and inland. You haven't said where you're from and how much experience you both have in driving curvy roads, but I thought I'd just throw this in for consideration.