Thinking of taking family (2 boys, 17 and 12) to Southern California for Easter and the week after. Last year we drove to Florida and found it to be more of a parking lot with all of the traffic jams everywhere. Not being familiar with the West Coast, will the traffic and crowds be just as bad in the areas from San Diego to north of LA area? Anyone visited this time of year? Thanks.

I'm a native resident of the LA area...a little old for the college crowd now but from what I've heard, you'll want to avoid Palm Springs, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach.
We took our kids to San Diego over easter and had a great time, no evidence of spring break craziness. Hope this is helpful.

We went LA and Santa Barbara last Easter week and I didn't notice tons of crowds, although people weren't traveling quite as much last year.It was much colder than normal too so maybe that had something to do with it.Easter is later this year so hopefully you'll have better weather.

So Calif is geographically BIG, and there are many accessible locations for spring break excursions ... as a result you will NOT encounter any worse-than-normal congestion EXCEPT maybe at Theme Parks, Zoos, and possibly some of the places Leslie listed.

Depending on the college or school district, spring/easter break can be anywhere from mid-March, to mid- and late April. That spreads out any risk of congestion over a 1-month period... it's not as if everyone takes vacation on one specific week.

Note that even Palm Springs is not like it may have been a few years ago. City officials have clamped down hard on out-of-town students who were trashing the place. But IMO, going to Palm Springs is boring anyway, I can't see make a long detour (2+ hours) there if I was a So Calif tourist in the springtime.

We visited San Diego and Joshua Tree (via Palm Springs) in April 2002, the week preceding Easter. We didn't notice any particularly crowded areas or roadways, so you should be fine. Being April, the weather was a bit iffy in San Diego - cool and cloudy for 5 days. Joshua Tree was hot (80s) during daytimes, cool at night.

san diego doesn't get too overly crowded. plan a few days in the desert as well in case the coastal weather is cool.

Now that it's less than a month to Easter Weekend, time to put my two cents in. San Diego is a great idea. It's just a wonderful city, with a lot to do.

Palm Springs will be overrun Easter Weekend with attendees of the White Party, a huge AIDS charity weekend with wild events and roughly 10,000 gay and lesbian tourists invading the city. Probably not where you want to bring your kids.

After a few days in SD, there are things like the outlet mall in Carlsbad (if you must get a shopping fix), the Mission in San Juan Capistrano, then farther up into Orango County: Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Huntington Beach. LA County lies beyond, and you can search this board for countless posts on what to do in LA.

Hopefully the weather will hold up. Think good thoughts...!