I absolutely loved California. This California road trip is one of my all-time favorite experiences. We had so much fun driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles and each place we visited on our road trip offered something unique. This was a journey crammed with activities from visiting Alcatraz to whale watching.
Whether you want a holiday packed with activities or just some great coastal places to relax then California is a great place to be. You could easily spend a week or a month here. Read on to find out more about the below places:
- San Francisco
- Napa Valley
- Sausalito
- Monterey
- Carmel By the Sea
- Big Sur
- Cambria
- Morro Bay
- Santa Barbara
- Santa Monica
- Los Angeles
Day 1 To 3: Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39, Lombard Street, Chinatown, Alcatraz Night Tour
We arrived in San Francisco late afternoon and the immigration queue at the airport was a 2+ hour ordeal. However, I knew the effort was well worth it when I tucked into my first Californian burrito later that evening. The Little Chihuahua was the perfect place for a relaxed evening bite after a long flight from Manchester (£300pp return).
Where To Stay In San Francisco
It was across the road from the Metro Hotel where we were staying in San Francisco. This hotel is located in the Haight Ashbury neighbourhood, a residential area of the city. It was nestled among coffee shops, restaurants and bars and less than 15 minutes into the city centre by tram, so the location is ideal.
For a relatively reasonable price of $512 for 4 nights, we had an economy room, although compact in size it was clean and comfortable and the staff were friendly.
Places To Eat In San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury
Also nearby the Metro hotel, and worthy of a mention, wasLittle Star Pizza, which gave me my first experience of a true Chicago deep dish pizza, which in my humble opinion are amazing. An alternative dinner option, if you really didn’t want to walk far after a day out Ragazza was literally next door and shared a garden with the Metro Hotel.
Breakfast Options In Haight Ashbury
Breakfast options were also in abundance, includingOakside Cafewhich provided with our daily breakfast bagel and coffee most days. Another great breakfast spot was Bean Bag Coffee house for a great breakfast burritos and even better coffee. Finally The Grind for a range of dishes from pancakes to scram.
Things to do in San Francisco
The next day, despite jumping on the trams and buses, we still clocked up about 18km of walking. We visited Fisherman’s Wharf & Pier 39 with its Sea Lions before stopping for my first ever In-N-Out Burger.
This was followed by a visit toChina Town, the oldest and most established in the US. This was full of quirky shops and some cool street art, as you can see towards the left of the picture below.
After China Town, we moved on to Lombard Street. This winding road has a 27% incline and would be too steep for a car to drive down in a straight line. The answer to this is 8 hairpin turns to allow cars to safely make their way down the hill. The residents take pride in planting beautiful flowers along the side of the road which makes it a great spot for a few extra snaps of the City.
The main event of the day was the Alcatraz Night Tour. This was facilitated by the ship’s captain and a mixture of personable guides on the island along with the self-guiding audio tour.
This a really enjoyable and immersive experience which really gives you an insight from the prisoners and guards perspective. An example of this is the cell door shutting demonstration in the video below.
The added bonus of visiting Alcatraz is that it’s also a great view-point for the city, where you can see the roads wind up and down the urban hills of San Francisco.
Day 2: Napa Valley & Sonoma Valley
We decided to book onto GrayLine’s wine tour after reading the reviews and comparing prices on various sites. The tour was around £70 each and started at around 8.30am and we were dropped back to the city for around half 5.
We visited three vineyards throughout the course of the day; Nicholson Ranch Winery, Jacuzzi Family Vineyards, Sutter Home. This was in addition to a lunch stop at the town ofYountville.
Nicholson Ranch Winery
The first vineyard was my favourite due it’s an authentic family-run feel and the nature of the tour. We walked through the vineyard and tasted the grapes straight off the vines!
Most importantly we had a wine tasting in their tasting room at the end of the tour and sampled three different types of wines. They were very informative about their specific history, the wine production process and the surrounding wine regions.
Jacuzzi Family Vineyard
The second stop at Jacuzzi was also good fun. I remember tasting a very unusual Barbera wine, which was smokey and spicy in taste. This was one of the 5 wines we tasted here. At this point, I may have started to feel a little tipsy. They also produce a wide range of olive oils, which you can also sample in their shop.
Sutter Home
The last stop at Sutter Home was more of an exit through the gift shop and the wine was nothing to write home about. The employees holding the wine tasting didn’t seem as interested as the previous two.
Maybe this was due to it not being as much of a family run estate. Perhaps this was some form of paid advertising by the vineyard to increase revenue. However, the grounds were nice for relaxing break in the sun.
Final Thoughts On The Napa and Sonoma Valley Wine Tour
Overall the tour was a good introduction to the wine region. The scenery made for a special place for a few glasses of wine.
The tour guide was incredibly informative tour and continuously supplied interesting facts. Such as how many millions dollars per square ft some of the vineyards were worth, along with the history and gossip surrounding the vineyards and their owners.
If you do decide to stop for lunch when visiting Yountville, I’d recommend the inexpensive Yountville Deli for some fantastic Pastrami sandwiches.
Day: 3 Sausalito
If I had £1,000,000 or maybe £10,000,000 to spare this would be the place I’d chose to buy a property. Luxury houses set overlooking the bay and are just a 20-minute ferry ride from San Francisco waterfront.
This is a perfect place for a sunny afternoon walk and a spot of lunch. We stopped at one called Sausalito Bakery and Cafe. Where we had some incredibly fresh tuna and prawn niçoise salads.
San Francisco to LA – via Big Sur (Day 4 – 9)
I was a little worried about this leg of our California road trip. I’d never driven in a foreign country, on the other side of the road, or in an automatic. However, this was actually one of the funnest parts of the holiday.
Everything went very smoothly from picking up our car at the airport to driving the Pacific Coast Highway. You can read more about how to rent a car, in addition to a range of tips by reading my post How To Rent A Car & Drive California’s Pacific Coast Highway.
Pigeon Point
We didn’t make too many stops on the way to Monterey with Pigeon Point being the first and only one. I was quite happy to take in the scenery whilst adjusting to the car on this stretch of road. However, Pigeon Point was a beautiful place to get a sample of what this trip had in store for us.
Day 4: Monterey
This is an ideal place to stop on your California road trip. Monterey itself was a pleasantly subtle high-end town, it had a soft class to it. We got so caught up walking along the waterfront and with the otters at Fisherman’s Wharf that we forgot to eat!
The plans for a fine dining experience went out the window and we ended up with a classic American hot dog and chips! However, this did leave a little more time for a casual craft beer /cider and tacos later in the evening at Alvardo Street Brewery.
Where To Stay In Monterey
Our hotel in Monterey was called The Stevenson. For a 2 star hotel/motel I was actually impressed by the quality. The parking in the underground car park was easy enough.
The room itself was clean and comfortable with tea and ground coffee making facilities. You could also help yourself to a hot drink or fruit from the reception area.
Room Size & Quality
Another nice surprise was that it was about 3x the size of our room in San Francisco. Breakfast was also included in the price of £81 per night and was varied enough. I had another first experience of using a waffle iron, which I managed to work out after a few attempts!
Being used to staying in 4 – 5* accommodation In Asia for the equivalent price, I was a little apprehensive about staying in a motel. But The Stevenson really set a great standard for motels.
Day 5: Carmel-By-The-Sea
We visited the attractive little town of Carmel before setting of through Big Sur. Despite being conscious of time, we couldn’t help but explore and check out the beach. Carmel had a perfect white sand beach, located in a friendly feeling residential area.
This will definitely be on my list of places to revisit and stay. Saying this, I would happily revisit all the places during our California road trip.
It’s far too easy to let your imagination get the better of you when visiting Monterey and Carmel. By the time I got to the beach, I was already trying to decide in which town I would buy my $500,000+ home.
Contemplating if one day GBP increased back to the historical (2007/08) levels of two dollars to the pound, what I could afford to buy when I moved to California. If we were to repeat out California road trip, we would definitely spend a night or two here.
However, this was superseded by the next place on our itinerary, Big Sur. Click the below link to read all about this in part 2 of our California road trip!
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