2014 Epic Summer Road Trip
Hubs and the girls landed late last night. In less than two days our California Coast Road Trip aka Epic Summer Road Trip will commence! Here is an outline of our route beginning in San Diego up to the Redwoods along the California Pacific Coast Highway then back down the interior of the state on Interstate 5:
Here’s the California Coast Road Trip plan:
- La Costa Resort & Spa for a night. Arcades, water-slides, views, great dining and something for all of us will be a great kick-off for our adventure!
- Los Angeles area pit stop – Randy’s Donuts, Chinese Theater, Walk of Fame, Rodeo Drive, Hollywood sign and a surprise in store for 8 year-old bonus daughter. We will not be doing an overnight, this is just a stop on the way to…
- San Luis Obispo/Pismo Beach – we will camp for two days and visit “Gum Alley” (gross, but people in the office say we must stop by) and ATV at the sand dunes. I’d love it if we could stop by the Monarch Butterfly Grove, but they’re not in migration this time of the year. I have heard the whales are breaching a lot in the area, so we may go check it out if we have the time!
- Short drive up to Big Sur/Monterey – Hiking, the Monterey Aquarium and whatever strikes our fancy. If there is time, we’ll check out Hearst Castle on the way. We will be camping in Big Sur for two nights. On the way to our next stop, I’m hoping to stop by the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz.
- San Francisco, one of my favorite places! Lombard Street, Fisherman’s Wharf, Japanese Tea Garden, Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory, of course! Hotel for two nights.
- Redwood National Forest – on the way we will most definitely stop at Ft. Bragg Glass Beach. I’ve never been and it’s on my bucket list. We’ll be camping out in the Redwoods, hiking and exploring.
- The ride home – We’ll head back down and totally play it by ear! When we get tired we’ll stop just letting nature and the ride take us where we’re meant to be!
Join us
I will be sharing costs along the way and how we budgeted for twelve days on the road. I have not used any of my hotel points or airline miles for the road trip (we used 100,000 for the girls to fly out here and will be using more for the hubs to join me in Puerto Rico later this year, given the Navy gives him the leave time).
As it stands, we have paid a total of $495.48 for all of our accommodations. I have done fuel cost estimations on three different websites with estimates ranging from $356.00 to $474.00. Since we just got ourselves an anniversary gift (hey, car titles count as paper, right?) I anticipate our fuel costs will be even higher even though I did the estimates for the Yukon. No more two-door coupe. Our chariot:
Something that’ll make you chuckle is me before meeting my husband: I would NEVER let TV entertain my children. After meeting my husband: Oh an SUV with a DVD player built in and wireless headsets to go along with said DVD player? SOLD!!!
Tune into our adventure here on the blog! I’m hoping to have the girls as guest bloggers a few times, too. Let California Coast Road Trip adventure begin…
Have you taken California Highway 1/Pacific Coast Highway up the state? Any must-sees along the way? Please do share in the comments! Side note: Since we have the girls, we won’t be stopping in the wine country, but I did have a great time there during my birthday in May. If you missed it, here is the post: Sonoma in Snapshots by clicking here.
