California Here We Come

I think, I hope, I’ve finally got everything arranged for our holiday this summer. 

I mentioned it a few months back, and to be honest, that only feels like last week, and yet here we are in May already. We’ll be on that plane before we know it.

We were originally going to Disney World last summer, but of course my breast cancer treatment came along, so we moved it to this summer. 

We were all happy with that plan as we love Disney World, but then the idea of visiting California instead popped into my head, and fortunately everyone else liked the idea too. 

The thing is though, California is quite big! And there’s so much of it we’d like to see, but only so long that we can spend there so we had to narrow our trip down and work out exactly what we wanted to see and do.

I’ve spent ages reading trip reports, browsing guide books, watching vlogs and researching hotels and attractions. 

It’s been quite the trip to plan, and of course, I am the one doing all of the planning here. Which isn’t any slight on the Husband at all, planning’s what I do well and I love it, so he’s happily left me to it. He’ll come into his own when I ask him to pack the suitcases – he’s a whizz at that!

We’ve got 16 nights, flights are all booked. We’re flying into San Francisco and our first day there will be a Dylan’s Tour taking us round San Francisco, over the Golden Gate Bridge to Muir Woods, lunch in Sausalito and then over to Alcatraz. It’ll be quite the first day, hopefully unforgettable. 

We’ve then another day to mooch about there on our own time, so we’ll be doing all of the touristy things, maybe going on a Hop On Hop Off bus to get around. 

We’ve then decided to drive down the Pacific Coast Highway, assuming it’s open when we visit as sections of it are currently closed off. If it’s still closed, we’ll drive around it and we should still get to see parts of it. We want to see places like Monterey, Carmel, Morro Bay, Pismo Beach, Solvang, Santa Barbara and Malibu as we drive down. We’ll take our time and we’ve a couple of nights stay in Cambria, right on the beach, to break it up and slow things down a little. 

LA is up next, and so far we have the Warner Bros’ Tour booked, a day at Universal and tickets to see the LA Dodgers one evening. We have a GoCity Pass, which allows us to see lots of top attractions, so while we’re there we also plan to go to Griffith Observatory, Madame Tussauds, the TCL Chinese Theatre, the Funko Pop shop (the kids are very firm on this one!), LA Zoo, Santa Monica Pier, and a celebrity homes bus tour. There’ll also be shopping at The Grove and my girls’ very keen to drop by the Beachwood Cafe – thanks, Harry Styles! The Husband and I have been to LA so we’ve been to a lot of these places before and enjoyed them, but we’re also visiting lots of places that’ll be new to us. 

Our last stop, and longest stop, is in Anaheim. We’ll have a day at Knotts Berry Farm, some shopping and beach trips, and we’ve got 5 days in Disneyland. We are Disney Parks people, so we’re excited about this. The Husband visited as a child, but myself and the kids have never been so we’re really looking forward to it.

My son and the Husband are having lots of chats about the food they want to eat, so I can see food stops being a bit part of this trip. As is standard with the pair of them, to be honest! My daughter is looking forward to the shopping, Warner Bros Tour and potential celebrity spotting, and she’s someone who loves thrill rides so all of the theme parks will be fabulous for her. The Husband will be doing the driving, which is fortunate as he’s a very calm and laidback driver, and he has driven in LA traffic before. We remember it! 

I want to do every single thing on the list, I struggle to choose something I’m most excited about. Muir Woods, Moonstone Beach, the Big Sur, Warner Bros. Tour, Disneyland maybe? Hard to narrow it down with so much going on. It’ll be jam packed, I’m just glad we’ve raised theme park kids! These two are used to hitting parks from rope drop to fireworks and think nothing of queuing for ages, so we have the stamina and the patience. 

I’m excited to take them on this trip. It will be filled with warm and wonderful days and be something they always remember. They’ve had a tough year, I want to give them this and I can’t wait to spend all of that time together on our adventures. 

I’m happy we’ve managed to book in what we’d like to do, and as for the things we can’t fit in, that seems like a good reason for another trip over there some time.

Have you visited these places? Any and all top tips are welcome!

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