SF - LA Coastal Road Trip

Did this with the wife in 2012, best trip of our lives. First off, go north to south SF to LA...and go ahead and extend that to San Diego and thank me later. We did I believe 10 days and it allowed us to see most of the sights and not rush too much. We planned all ourselves and what really made it fun was using the Hotel Tonight app for lodgings which pops up discounted rooms available that night that would have otherwise gone unfilled. I'm a planner so this spontaneity made it fun. We stayed in SF 3 days, 2 nights...fantastic city, one of the best. Allow time here...see the GG bridge, take the Alcatraz tour, rent a bike and ride through GG Park, go to fisherman's wharf (cheesy but seals and good chowder). Giants weren't in town but we went into the stadium, one of the best I've seen so catch a game if you can. We rented a car from there and took a side trip to Napa Valley...DO. THIS. Even if you aren't a wine lover (wife is, me not so much) the scenery and food/wine was nuts. Even did a hot air balloon ride here, highly recommend. I'm big into visiting universities so we stopped at Cal-Berkeley...super nice, even went to a Cal football game. The drive from SF to Santa Cruz was great. Stop there and go to the boardwalk. Once you start getting to the HWY 1 coast part of the drive...just leave a few days and enjoy. Hope you're not afraid of heights. Big Sur, Monterrey, Carmel...stop at all of them and just breathe it in, take pics, grab lunch. Monterrey aquarium is famous and nice but I thought crowded and overrated, however Monterrey Bay was a beautiful stroll and can even kayak out there. Make sure to stop at Carmel by the Sea and Julia Pfeiffer Burns state park, and you must do the 17 mile drive which includes Pebble Beach and the Lone Cypress. I was kinda sad when that drive was over. My regret was I wish we would've stopped and had more Malibu and Santa Monica and less L.A. These are the outer beach areas of LA. I've been to LA twice and other than the Dodgers game and the Griffith Observatory (do both), I think it sucks. Just my humble opinion that it doesn't hold a candle to NYC. Also my humble opinion, blow through LA and go another 1.5 hours to San Diego...the weather, the zoo, the beach, the fish tacos, one of my favorite cities. I'm not sure how much time you have but I'd allow no less than a week and preferably 10 days...3 days SF, 1 day Napa, 3 days HWY 1 coast, 1 day LA, 2 days SD. Hope that helps. I'm looking forward to another even more outdoorsy Cali trip that includes SF again, Sonoma, Yosemite and Lake Tahoe.

We did SF and Lake Tahoe, flew out of reno. SF city is oK, but city park, sutro baths, lands end trails' views of GG bridge, and Muir Woods/beach was breathtaking. Tahoe was great of course.

This time we are going to fly into lax because flights are 170ish from msy. We wanna do catilina islands, or islands of Santa Barbra, big sur, Monterey, I hear Hearst castle is cool. Might spend some time in the city if there's a band we wanna see. We could make the drive to Yosemite too.

Problem is everyone says go to sandeigo. guess I could do north of la a few and SD a few and skip Yosemite