MelJ

I'm usually on the Europe forum, so please bear with me if this is something I could have researched and found here, but I need too many suggestions so general input is appreciated. My first trip to California was June 2011 and I fell in love with the coast so want to share it with my husband. Here's the loose plan:

Flying into LAX on Thursday, Oct. 25. We need to stay in the LA area to meet with friends for several functions taking place in Long Beach, LA, Malibu, Ojai, etc. until noon on Monday. We will return friends to the airport and exchange our car for a convertible and the hub and I will head for Palm Springs early Monday afternoon. Going to PS to find the neighborhood where my parents rented a house when dad was stationed there in 1942 so it will just be a picture-taking pit stop, but that's where we should probably spend the night. (recommendation?)

Tuesday early morning head north up the coast. Here's where I could use suggestions:
Is Santa Barbara worth a stop for lunch and a walk in town? Then on to San Louis Obispo where we'd spend the night. (Anything else/instead you like in this area?).

Wednesday morning to Hearst Castle. Last year I spent several hours there and didn't see the second floor, so I anticipate this being a good portion of the day. Hoping to be in around 10:00 am and out by 2:00 pm and on to Pebble Beach for a quick view for my golfing hubby. DInner and on the road to Napa.

Wednesday night, Thursday and Friday in Napa (where? Last year went to the Coppola and another winery. Would like to go to Coppola again and 3-4 more. Recommendations? mid-range hotels?

Saturday morning-early-drive down to San Francisco and drop off the car. Take a taxi or ? to Fisherman's Wharf and pick up an open-top double-decker sightseeing bus tour that includes a good Alcatraz tour and two-days to use the hop-on hop-off. (This must be purchased in advance) Saturday night hotel recommendation?

Sunday night airport hotel. Flying home VERY early, as in 5:35 am!

If you've made it to this point, thank you! Does this sounds workable? Am I missing something you've seen/done and would recommend? Hotel/motel and/or restaurants you like?

I travel on a pretty tight budget, so I'm not looking for fancy hotels or 5-star restaurants. Clean and well-located motels even work.

THANK YOU!!! If you ever plan to go to Paris, I'll return the favor

sf7307

Well, it's an awful lot of driving.

You do realize, I assume, that Palm Springs is nowhere near the coast?

Were you planning on driving up the coast from Hearst Castle to Pebble Beach to Napa? VERY long drive. I'd consider sleeping in the Monterey area and heading to Napa the next morning.

MelJ

Hi, sf7307. We're going from LAX to Palm Springs and Mapquest puts it at a little over 2 hours. Palm Springs to Santa Barbara is 3.5 hours and SB to San Louis Obispo is under 2. That's ok for a day for us. Hearst to Pebble Beach is 2.5 hours and Pebble Beach to Napa is almost 3 more, so we'd get into Napa in the evening.

A big part of this trip is enjoying the drive up the PCH. Still too much? I wasn't impressed with Monterey last year, though it did make a good overnight stop.

Thanks for your input. Additional thoughts?

janisj

"Mapquest puts it at a little over 2 hours. Palm Springs to Santa Barbara is 3.5 hours and SB to San Louis Obispo is under 2."

In your (and mapquest's) dreams!

Still too much?"

YES!

Hearst to Pebble Beach is 2.5 hours and Pebble Beach to Napa is almost 3 more, so we'd get into Napa in the evening."

That is NOT a drive you can rush. Big Sur is 35-40 mph territory (and often white knuckle at that)

Plus you have to allow for very heavy/slow traffic in both LA and SF Bay areas

MichelleY

I agree with the others that you have way too much to cram into your time frame. Cut out PS or Napa to spend more time on the coast. If you are only going to Napa to wine taste and see vineyards, you will have plenty of opportunities: Santa Barbara County, Santa Ynez Valley, San Luis Obispo County, Paso Robles, Carmel Valley etc. on the way north.

If PS is a must, try to spend more than one night and enjoy the desert. We went several years ago in early November and loved it. Stayed at the Palm Springs Rendezvous

http://www.palmspringsrendezvous.com/

A mid-century, historical motel. Very fun. We went up the Aerial Tram up Mt Jacinto, explored downtown PS and some of the other historical, mid-century motels and buildings. We also did an easy hike in one of the native palm canyons - this was very cool.

Way too many choices on the coast, but if you want to focus on Hearst Castle, then stay in Cambria.

I also think the drive from Hearst Castle, thru Carmel, to Napa is WAAAY too much for one day. You would have to plan around Bay Area traffic.

debaroo

MelJ-
What you are proposing is completely doable. My husband and I live in the mountains of Northern California, and love the coast drive - we just returned from the Monterey area last week, and we encountered cool weather and fog. You've picked a better month to travel the central coast!

We drove the exact route you are suggesting in the early summer of this year - Palm Springs to Pismo Beach (just north of Santa Barbara,) Pismo to San Luis Obispo and on to Cambria, San Simeon and through Big Sur, Carmel and then turned eastward before Monterey, north to Interstate 80, and took Hwy 29 into Napa. I'll fill in the highway #s in another post.

2 hours is not unreasonable to get from LA to Palm Springs; 3.5 is reasonable from PS into Santa Barbara, and SB into San Luis in 2 hours is reasonable, too. Friday afternoon traffic would change things, as would mid-day weekends along the coast. It doesn't look like that applies to you.

I agree that you want to take it slowly as you travel Hwy 1 along the Big Sur area.

I've printed your post and will respond in a day or two in more detail, but as long as you consider that traffic could impact your travels, you can do this trip!

janisj

Welcome to Fodors Debaroo. Like you - each of the 3 others who have posted to this thread also live in northern California (hey - a GTG in the making?! )

Yes, the drive is doable. Advisable? Not IMO. For example LAX to Palm Springs is 125 miles and in the afternoon could easily take 4 hours.

janisj

Oh - meant to ask - which day is the Ojai event? The LAX or Long Beach areas to Ojai would be a 2 hour drive. You basically will be behind the wheel for hours most days

bluestar

Yes, I suppose your itinerary as outlined is possible to do but that Wednesday schedule is certainly not desirable. Way too much crammed into that day. If your goal is to (mainly) enjoy the coast then you need to chop a day from the wine country and add it to the coast. And if you decided to axe the Palm Springs detour, I'd add that extra night to San Francisco on Friday so that you have a proper weekend experience in the city.

Have a look at this google route map I plotted which breaks down my suggested route for you into manageable stretches. You can see the driving distances/times between the map pinpoints in the left panel. http://goo.gl/maps/Yy3HK

As you see, I have made Sonoma your wine country experience instead of adjacent Napa County. It's arguable & subjective, but I like Sonoma County better. If you've never been, give it a try. Use Sonoma (town) as you base for surrounding wineries. Nice town square -- don't miss going into the Mission.

So, if I were doing this route here is how I'd break it up after Palm Springs.

1st night (Tue): Cambria (take your sweet time the next day at Hearst Castle and driving the Big Sur stretch)

2nd night (Wed): Santa Cruz (you aren't crazy about Monterey anyway so go the extra 45 minutes or so to this beach town. Lodging is generally cheaper than Monterey/Carmel).

3rd & 4th nights (Thur & Fri): After a leisurely exploration of the serene San Mateo coast on Hwy 1 and beautiful Marin County up to Tomales Bay, head to Sonoma.

5th night (Sat): It's a short drive from Sonoma to San Francisco. Stay in Fisherman's Wharf area if you like (since your tour bus is based there), although Downtown/Embarcadero/Union Square areas are better to stay in, IMO)

6th night (Sun): One of the airport hotels in Millbrae or Burlingame near the airport that has a very early free shuttle to the terminal. I'd take BART from the city to Millbrae and then a cab to your hotel. You could probably get a good deal on an airport hotel using Hotwire or Pricelne although your wouldn't know the name/exact location until purchased.

Have you booked your car (from LAX w/ SF drop-off) yet? If not, you'll want to work on that to make sure you won't be stuck with an exorbitant rate.

The weather in late October will probably be okay although it's not unheard of to get a rainy spell around Halloween, signaling the official start of the rainy season. Chances for this generally increase the further north you go.

Have a safe and enjoyable trip.

tomfuller

If you wanted to stay north of Santa Cruz, the Pigeon Point Lighthouse HI Hostel is an option.
In June DW and I traveled from central Oregon to Santa Barbara.
We made a stop in Pescadero for a few groceries for our evening meal which I cooked in their kitchen. The next morning we took a little walk around the grounds, had some breakfast and headed south. We had a nice lunch in Pismo Beach and got to Santa Barbara by 3PM.
The hostel is 43 miles from SFO if you take 92 over the mountain from Half Moon Bay. Normally this takes less than an hour.

Patty

I also think Wednesday is too much. It's doable but I wouldn't find it pleasant. Are you planning to stop anywhere between Hearst and Pebble Beach? You haven't allowed time for that. As mentioned there are plenty of wineries in central California. You don't have to go to Napa or Sonoma for that.

MelJ

You guys ROCK!!! Thank you for everything you've offered. I did this drive (not PS) June 2011 and it worked out really well BUT I had forgotten how many times we stopped in Big Sur just to gawk, so I'm redoing Wednesday for sure.

Janisj: we will be back and forth to Ojai all of the first weekend and that can't be changed (as much as I'd like to) so, yes, I realize we'll be in the car. That weekend is kind of a toss-away for me as there are too many others involved to change plans. I'm focusing on the Monday-Monday itinerary for the hub and I.

Bluestar--can't wait to really go over your suggestions. They look great.

I'll also check out all the hotel and resto suggestions.

THANK YOU!! Feel free to keep it coming. I'm truly appreciative.

MelJ

Debaroo, meant to thank you for your encouragement and willingness to add your route. Thanks!!

easytraveler

Where are you going to be Monday noon: Ojai or LA? It makes quite a bit of difference in how you could arrange your day.

If you're in LA, and PS is just a photo-pit stop, you could easily get a leg up by returning to the Greater LA area Monday afternoon/evening. You could return as far as Ontario or even the San Fernando Valley.

Then Tuesday you could visit Santa Barbara and then go inland to the wineries in either Santa Barbara County or San Luis Obispo County before heading back out to the coast and San Luis Obispo.

We have found through numerous trips to SLO that the La Cuesta Inn is an inexpensive and good place to stay in SLO. It's at the north end of SLO:

http://www.lacuestainn.com/

I agree with the others that your Wednesday is much too rushed. After visiting Hearst Castle you will be going along the Big Sur coast. Try stopping at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and the short walk out to McWay Falls, one of the few falls to empty directly into the Pacific Ocean

http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=578

Further up the road is Nepenthe with a fabulous view over the Pacific Ocean:

http://www.nepenthebigsur.com/

If you have the time, stop off at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, just a couple of miles up the road from Nepenthe, and look at the redwoods:

http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=570

I would strongly suggest that you spend the night in the Carmel/Pacific Grove/Monterey area. It'll be fun to wander around Carmel in the late afternoon/early evening. There are many good restaurants in Carmel.

Next morning, Thursday, try and get to Point Lobos if the weather is good. This is a beautiful state park:

http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=571

The entire Big Sur - Carmel stretch is one of the most beautiful areas in the US. It'll be a pity to just rush right straight through. If you stop at the above places, you will have seen some of the best that the area has to offer.

MelJ

easytraveler, you are right about it being too beautiful to rush. I've decided to heed all the recommendations above and make more stops. I went to JP Burns Park and saw the waterfall last year and, yes, I wanted to stop there again. Also, Mauer Woods (spelling)

Here's how I've roughly rethought it, thanks to the input above:

We'll be in Ojai Monday morning. Instead of taking our friends back to LAX, I'm going to look into getting a car in Ojai, sending them back to the airport and car drop off on their own and heading north from Ojai that day. This means skipping Palm Springs, but I think now that should be saved for a return trip when we can head south of LA.

So Monday, early, moving north...

Also, doing the wineries on the way to San Francisco instead of passing through to get to Napa.

So Monday - Friday working our way to San Francisco, arriving early enough Saturday to do Alcatraz and using the hop on/hop off bus both Saturday and Sunday to get an overview of the city (I spent a few days there last year and, while I liked it very much, I'm not interested in an in-depth city stay this time).

Revisions making this more reasonable?

easytraveler

Well, yes and no.

Trying to rent a car in Ojai sounds pretty awful as an idea.

Can you reserve a car in either Ventura or Santa Barbara and have your friends take you there on their way back to LAX?

Also you have to be very mindful of the drop-off fees if you pick-up in one city and drop-off in another. I believe janisj mentioned some rental agency that allows overseas visitors to rent cars without the horrendous drop-off charges. Hope she'll return to this thread. Otherwise, you'll have to check into some website like Kayak and keep trying for your particular dates until something viable turns up.

Your itinerary revisions sound much more doable, although five days along the coast from Santa Barbara to San Francisco is a bit much, since you've given yourselves only two days in San Francisco.

It's really hard to say without more information. Are you outdoors people? Do you like to hike? Or do you like the beach? Or are you more city people?

With your added days along the coat, one thing I would add is Mission La Purisma Concepcion

http://www.lapurisimamission.org/

The Spanish Missions are a very important part of California history. There are 21 missions, 19 of them are still in the Catholic Church. Two of them are now state parks. La Purisma is one of the state parks and it has been redone in such a way as to give a flavor of life during mission days; the rangers are dressed in period costumes. The entire mission has been rebuilt to what it was before (some of the ones under the Catholic Church have either fallen into ruins or else have been moved to an entirely different location). It's a very authentic experience and very different from visiting one of the Catholic-controlled missions, such as the mission at Santa Barbara.

The other thing I think you would find interesting to do is to go to a steakhouse. The Central Coast is, after all, beef territory. Hearst Castle is situated on land that once formed a huge cattle empire for the Hearsts. There is still a tradition of raising cattle in this area. There are several along the way for you and you could select one of them.

Patty

Your new plan sounds good except as mentioned I don't think you can rent a car in Ojai. It's a pretty small town. If you rent from Santa Barbara airport, several companies don't have drop fees to LAX. SBA is actually in Goleta north of Santa Barbara so does involve some backtracking for your friends.

MelJ

I'll look into renting the car in the SB area. Our friends who live in Ojai would probably not mind taking us to SBA so those returning to LAX don't have to do that. I've used open-jaw car rentals many times and it seems to me they are getting much more reasonable in the charges. I had already looked into a convertible LAX out and SFO in for 8 days and it was around $600 from several top agencies (no mileage limits, either).

Excellent idea about the steakhouse in San Simeon area. And the mission.

Thanks!!

easytraveler

I'm not aware of any great steakhouses in San Simeon or Cambria. Maybe another Fodorite can chip in here.

The steakhouses that I was thinking of are further north or more in the interior.

The granddaddy of them all along the coast is F. McLintocks and the original one is at Shell/Pismo Beach right off of Highway 101, easy to reach:

http://www.mclintocks.com/

In the same area, at Grover Beach, is A J Spurs. My recollection is that their steak is better, but it's been a few years since I've dined at either restaurant.

http://www.ajspurs.com/

If you're going inland to do winetasting, you might try the Hitching Post in Casmalia. Getting to Casmalia may be too much of a drive for you, since it's really way out in the "toolies":

http://www.hitchingpost1.com/

These are real old West steakhouses, not at all like the chain restaurants, such as Outback Steakhouse or Black Angus.

jamie99

Hitching Post is good, only been to the one in Buellton, near Solvang, convenient if visiting Santa Ynez wineries.


Paso Robles Inn has Harris Ranch beef, or did at the time.