asimm

Thank you for you suggestions

marvelousmouse : thanks for following me in 2016 for my East coast trip. I received many info and great suggestions which helped me a lot to plan a trip which me and my family wanted and we enjoyed a lot in the East coast from New York to DC with a stop at Shenandoah park which was lovely and a great drive and Orlando with all its theme park(Disney + Universal) was amazing

Coming back to West Coast, not sure why, but it seems that Yosemite is now out of my minds. Yellowstone seems to far and on the expensive side as well and after going through this magnificent suggestion of Redwoods California NP seems a wonderful suggestion with lush green fields, tall trees and beautiful coastline and many options of accomodation in all price range + it can be connected with the Pacific highway trip

What would i miss at Redwoods in comparison to Yosemite ?

I have tried to explore a bit of Redwoods, may i get suggestions on what, where and how to do at the Redwoods Np

Thanks a ton

marvelousmouse

there are various hikes you can do. The state parks in the area are great too. You could go beach combing. There are nostalgic roadside attractions too, like the trees of mystery.

https://www.treesofmystery.net/

It’s difficult to do justice to the trees in words. They’re amazing. It’s really all about the giant redwood. Sort of feels like a mysterious remote land. Yosemite is more about the landscape and waterfalls. Redwoods are more of a driving holiday- the area is very spread out. They’re very different experiences as national parks.

I camped so can’t rec lodging. Mostly I just hung out at my campsite and hiked.


Like any other park, there’s also the junior ranger program and visitor centers
https://www.nps.gov/redw/planyourvisit/things2do.htm

emalloy

There are also places to see very large trees on your drive from SF to LA. One place we found very good was Julia Pfifer State park, right on the coast highway.

Myer

I was in Yosemite in 2011. Things may have changed.

While it is one of the nicer parks, I swore I would never go back there. It is the most commercial park I have been to. Every effort is made to have you buy a ticket for something.
And anything that is included such a buses to some location, are subject to being taken out of service to be used somewhere for which a charge is made.

We couldn't even park our car in the parking lot for our lodging after 8:00 as it was used for commercial purposes.

As I wrote above, things may have changed.

= = = = = = = =

Yellowstone doesn't play fair. I say that in a positive way. It's very diverse. It's very large. And if that isn't enough, Grand Teton NP is such to the south and is beautiful.

If fact, I always say that Yellowstone is more of an even park. Geysers, waterfalls, hot springs, etc.
But for sheer scenery in a relatively compact area, Grand Tetons NP is absolutely beautiful.

Unless you have unlimited time I would select the areas of interest and explore them. ​​​​​​​

Jean

The trip in question happened in June 2019.

asimm

True, that the trip started in June 2019 and completed in July 2019.

Unfortunately, we could'nt go to any of the NP's as we had to shorten our trip from 4 weeks to 3 weeks. We had choice to either do the PCH1 or Yosemite (b/w yosemite & yellowstone, we had decided to visit YM) but then due to fewer days we skipped it, as we preferred PCH1 drive for 04 nights

Maybe many would not agree with our decision, but i believe others would agree too, but all in all, we had a wonderful time on this trips especially PCH1 & the Forum helped me tremendously in making this trip and trip of my lifetime

We liked few main destinations, many small stops/vista points or day trips were wonderful, but for me below 2 are definate visit places for 1-2 hours
*Montana de Orro state park
*Margo Dodd

& someone on this forum rightly called Montana De Orro state park, as a "Gem" to which i totally agree now

Thank you everyone