The California Road Trip

We are back from our Californian road trip, and we all had an amazing time. 

Everything went smoothly, and we were happy with the four hotels we chose. It was fun moving around, and the travelling and road trip part of the experience was much more relaxed and fun than any of us had expected. 

We flew from Heathrow into San Francisco, where we stayed for three nights. It was our first visit here, as the Husband and I didn’t travel further north than LA when we visited California many years ago, so we were really looking forward to exploring.

On our first afternoon there we visited Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39 and saw the sea lions. We followed that up by an amazing first full day after that, with a Dylan’s Tour. We took in the sights of San Francisco, travelled over the Golden Gate Bridge, walked around the stunning Muir Woods, lunched in Sausalito, then visited Alcatraz. It was a fabulous day, and the tour shared lots of sights, tips and insider San Francisco knowledge. 

I feel like that kicked off the holiday in style and then it was day after day of doing things we all loved. As holidays should be!

We all liked San Francisco, it felt different to the other stops on our trip. We saw loads of the self driving cars, they’re everywhere out there. And even though we’ve seen it in films, it’s hard to appreciate just how steep those hills are until you’re walking up them! We did get the cable cars too, they were fun. 

After picking up a car at the end of our San Francisco stay, we drove down the Pacific Coast Highway as far as the Big Sur, then drove back up to Monterey for a few hours. There’s a landslide on the highway at the moment, meaning you can’t drive the whole way down it, you need to go up and inland to get back to the coast again. It’s well worth the back and forth, as the views were just amazing. After Monterey we drove on to Cambria for a couple of nights. 

We used our Cambria stay to explore more of the PCH, driving up to Ragged Point and seeing the elephant seals at San Simeon and sea otters at Morro Bay. Our Cambria inn was lovely, right across from Moonstone Beach, a lovely relaxing place. 

I loved seeing so much wildlife, the sea lions, sea otters, elephant seals, and then we saw deer on the rocks on our way through Malibu, there were just animals everywhere! Loved it. 

We then drove on to our LA part of the trip, stopping at Solvang and Santa Monica on our way to our hotel there. We stayed in Burbank and it was a lovely neighbourhood and perfectly positioned for our adventures. 

We spent a day at Universal Studios Hollywood, and the evening up at Griffiths Observatory, taking in some stunning views along with the Hollywood sign. Our next day was the Warner Bros. Studio Tour which we all loved. My son sat in Sheldon’s spot on the sofa and knocked on Penny’s door! 

We saw the Gilmore Girls’ Stars Hollow, Central Perk, Harry Potter props and so much more. It was only a ten minute walk from our hotel, so it felt like a lovely, relaxed morning. 

We spent our afternoon at LA Zoo, before going over to Dodger Stadium for an evening of baseball. That was lots of fun, and we all now love baseball! My son updates me on the Dodgers scores most days, just another team to keep track of!

Our final day in LA we went to Hollywood to go to Madame Tussauds, the Chinese Theatre, a celebrity homes bus tour and a visit to the Funko store. If your kids like Funko Pops, they’d love it there. Our two were in there for a while, it’s huge. You’re able to create your own Funko Pops, too, so my son created a Funko of himself. We also grabbed an In-N-Out Burger here, I liked my Double Double. 

We popped to The Grove for the Cheesecake Factory and then rounded off our evening travelling to and grabbing drinks from the Beachwood Cafe. If you’ve a Harry Styles fan in your family, they’ll probably know why we did this – it’s mentioned in one of his songs. From there, we had a little drive up in the hills around the Hollywood sign. 

We then headed to Anaheim for the last week of our trip. Our first day was at Knott’s Berry Farm and we were there from opening until closing, we all enjoyed it. They have some big coasters, which the Husband and Boo loved, and plenty of other rides for Little Man and I to enjoy. And we met Snoopy!

We then had several days in Disneyland, along with the Halloween party, the Oogie Boogie Bash. That was brilliant, as we got on loads of rides with little or no queues, saw villains aplenty, enjoyed the Halloween parade, Villain’s Grove and lots and lots of treat trails.

We then broke up our Disneyland days with time at the pool, a little shopping, a trip to Huntington Beach, fun at mini golf, and various restaurants. 

On our final day we headed back up to LA, visited Venice Beach for a couple of hours, then dropped our car back before flying home out of LAX.

It’s hard to pick out highlights as we crammed so much in. And some of those things were just completely different. It’s hard to compare standing next to a Giant Redwood, breathing the forest in, with chatting to Encanto’s Uncle Bruno in Disneyland’s California Adventure, but both were great! 

Every day brought something fabulous to us, and I’m hoping it’s a holiday the kids will always remember. I certainly will. I know many people followed along with our travels over on Instagram, there is a California Highlights there if you want to see some of it. 

If you’re looking to do a similar trip, I have tonnes of practical tips I could share, so do just ask. 

It feels strange not to have plans to make, I’d been working on this one for nearly a year. I miss that, I want to make plans and look forward to it again. If anyone wants to hire a California trip planner, just ask!

 

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