San Franciso to San Diego

Frankie4fingers

Hi All,

Me and my girlfriend are heading to san fran in october and are planning to do the pacific coast highway drive to san diego!! Our timeline is 4 days and 3 nights! that is about as much as we know so far so and advice/help would be great

Firstly we would like to know should we rent a car and stay in hotels or just rent a RV? Also if so does anyone know the best/cheapest companies to deal with?

Secondly, where do ye recommend we stop off to spend most of our time?

And lastly, Are they any sites/attractions that are a must see along the way??

Thanks for your help

tricky D

Monterrey Aquarium, 17 Mile Drive, Big Sur, Hearst Castle, anywhere which has Redwoods are on my list in a few weeks time.

Frankie4fingers

Thanks...ive heard of big sur and also hearst castle so should be good !!are you renting a car/ RV? Do ya know any websites that dont charge one way fees ??

tricky D

I'm renting a car but doing a loop back to SF so did no research on one way stuff.

InTheTrees

RV vs Car?

I'd go for a car. There's so many places to stay I dont see that a RV would offer any extra convenience.

And it would cost a lot more. More in gas too.

If you were going somewhere isolated maybe.

ColmBr

Frankie4fingers wrote: »

ive heard of big sur and also hearst castle so should be good !

Just back a few weeks from a pretty similar trip! Hearst castle is nice but i would not put it on the must see list. you could just keep on the road and continue on to your next destination and have more time there but do stop at the beach just a few miles before ( less than 10 but cant remember exactly) to see the Sea Lion colony. they were pretty cool to see.

If you're staying in Monterey, The Hilton Garden Inn is very relaxing even though it's just a night's stay( I stayed for a night too). Great food there and a nice pool area.

17 mile drive, as mentioned before, is well worth the 12 dollars entry! great views to be seen there and some swanky houses on show too just to make you feel jealous!

ColmBr

Oh yeah and by the way, if you rent a car, DON'T rent with Alamo. their SF office and entire system is beyond a joke!

Frankie4fingers

InTheTrees wrote: »

RV vs Car?

I'd go for a car. There's so many places to stay I dont see that a RV would offer any extra convenience.

And it would cost a lot more. More in gas too.

If you were going somewhere isolated maybe.

Ya i think we r now gonna to go for the car...the rv wud of been cool but the one way fee is an absolute joke....$250!!

Staying 1st night in san simeon i think just to break the journey up and then aim to make hopefully san diego for night 2 as im told theirs no real point wasting time in LA... ANY VIEWS ON THIS??

Bannerman7

ColmBr wrote: »

Oh yeah and by the way, if you rent a car, DON'T rent with Alamo. their SF office and entire system is beyond a joke!

Yeah I go along with that when I picked up a car on Bush Street.
Having said that its best to pick up at airport locations as much better selection & Alamo let you choose your car.

Bannerman7

Frankie4fingers wrote: »

Hi All,

Me and my girlfriend are heading to san fran in october and are planning to do the pacific coast highway drive to san diego!! Our timeline is 4 days and 3 nights! that is about as much as we know so far so and advice/help would be great

Firstly we would like to know should we rent a car and stay in hotels or just rent a RV? Also if so does anyone know the best/cheapest companies to deal with?

Secondly, where do ye recommend we stop off to spend most of our time?

And lastly, Are they any sites/attractions that are a must see along the way??

Thanks for your help

I did a trip from San Francisco to Long Beach a few years ago by car.
We did the 17 mile drive including Pebble Beach Golf Club & found it very over rated. For me Ring of Kerry puts it to shame.
Its a lot of driving in just a few days so will be really hard for you to take in all the sights.
For me visit http://www.santabarbaraca.com/ if you can and when driving thru Malibu stop off for lunch at http://www.paradisecovemalibu.com/

Enjoy the trip & safe driving.;)

Frankie4fingers

Bannerman7 wrote: »

I did a trip from San Francisco to Long Beach a few years ago by car.
We did the 17 mile drive including Pebble Beach Golf Club & found it very over rated. For me Ring of Kerry puts it to shame.
Its a lot of driving in just a few days so will be really hard for you to take in all the sights.
For me visit http://www.santabarbaraca.com/ if you can and when driving thru Malibu stop off for lunch at http://www.paradisecovemalibu.com/

Enjoy the trip & safe driving.;)

Thank You :D

Your right beacuse our time is so limited we would have to use it wisely!! My GF was told to spend most of our time in San Diego!! Im just wondering is it as good as she says??

Bannerman7

If you would like to visit a proper Irish Bar in San Francisco you wont go wrong having nice food & pint in http://www.johnnyfoleys.com/ just off Union Sq.
http://goo.gl/maps/cHsqd

InTheTrees

I dont think there's enough time to spend "most of your time" in any one place.

3 nights isnt really enough time to linger anywhere. With that little time you'd want to plan it from the time your flight arrives, which just because of time differences I'd guess will be in the Evening in SF. So you either skip SF and start heading south or spend the first night there.
Highway One is the scenic road, (You can take a faster route but thats not the point, you could also fly after all.) Highway one from SF to LA is going to take an entire day easy. Nine hours. ANd that doesnt include stops.
You'll arrive in LA exhausted and have enough time the next day to get to San diego, relax a little in the afternoon and get your plane out the next morning.

Can you not get some more time? 2 more days would make it much more doable.

Frankie4fingers

afraid not as i am landing approx 2 o clock on the monday and flying from san diego on the thurs evening back to san fran for my cousins wedding so really my time frame would be roughly 4 days and 3 nights but sure we ll make the most of it!!

Ive booked a convertible today and also a hotel for our first night stay in a place called san simeon to break up the journey!!

Thinking of santa monica for the 2nd night( because its supposed to be lovely and also v close to los angelas)

And then san diego for the 3 night?

What ye think??

InTheTrees

Frankie4fingers wrote: »

afraid not as i am landing approx 2 o clock on the monday and flying from san diego on the thurs evening back to san fran for my cousins wedding so really my time frame would be roughly 4 days and 3 nights but sure we ll make the most of it!!

Ive booked a convertible today and also a hotel for our first night stay in a place called san simeon to break up the journey!!

Thinking of santa monica for the 2nd night( because its supposed to be lovely and also v close to los angelas)

And then san diego for the 3 night?

What ye think??

Seriously? You arrive in SF at 2pm and have booked a hotel in San Simeon for that night??

Have you looked at a map?

Highway one is a slow winding cliff road that you cant go much over 30-40mph a lot of the way. Its gets dark around 7. You'll be driving one of the most scenic (after the ring of kerry!) roads in the world in a convertible in the dead of night. Plus you'll get to san simeon maybe by 3am. And all this after getting right off an international flight?

You could take highway 101 and then go backwards up highway 1 to get to san simeon though, that may only take four or five hours...

https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=35.906849,-121.48819&spn=0.543923,1.091766&t=m&z=10&layer=c&cbll=35.916311,-121.469165&panoid=_MaIO_iUJ0zW1Ewi_xh_4A&cbp=12,343.31,,0,16.98

InTheTrees

Your flight arrives at 2pm.

Best case you'll be sitting in your convertible ready to go at around 3pm.

Cancel the hotel in San Simeon. Book the first night in Monterey. You can get there around six or seven. Have a relaxing dinner, drive around a little.

The next day you get up early and drive highway one all the way to santa monica. It'll be a long day but you have a convertible and you're on the california coast and its not so far.

Then the next day you drive to San diego as planned.

tricky D

Add to that: a long flight, so tired; driving an automatic, in the left hand seat and on the right hand side of the road; and also immigration could take anything from 20 mins to a few hours.

I'm arriving at a similar hour and only heading as far as SF for a good night's sleep with early rise next morning. If I was in your shoes, the furthest I'd go is Monterrey, Santa Cruz at a push. When the sun goes down at those latitudes, you don't get quite the same the kind of slow dusk we get here.

Stojkovic

Bannerman7 wrote: »

If you would like to visit a proper Irish Bar in San Francisco you wont go wrong having nice food & pint in http://www.johnnyfoleys.com/ just off Union Sq.
http://goo.gl/maps/cHsqd

I walked in and walked straight out of this place.

For a REALLY proper Irish Bar with friendly Irish staff go to Fiddlers Green at the bottom of Columbus Avenue at Hyde. Great food and beer and great craic !!!

lil_lisa

You're in California for what, a week? For a REAL Irish bar, just wait til you get home!

Frankie4fingers

Well the previuos few posts have just made me feel like an idiot...i dont think i thought this true properly!! But saying that I think that getting to san simeon for the 1st night will get us up the road fairly quick and take some off the pressure off for the remainder of our few days!!

Also I double checked again and its actually 12.00 we should be landing but I would hope to be on the road as close as 2pm

Bannerman7

Stojkovic wrote: »

I walked in and walked straight out of this place.

For a REALLY proper Irish Bar with friendly Irish staff go to Fiddlers Green at the bottom of Columbus Avenue at Hyde. Great food and beer and great craic !!!

How anyone can judge a bar by walking in and walking straight out again beats me.

Judging by http://www.tripadvisor.ie/Restaurant_Review-g60713-d520209-Reviews-Johnny_Foley_s-San_Francisco_California.html#REVIEWS must people enjoy.

InTheTrees

Frankie4fingers wrote: »

Well the previuos few posts have just made me feel like an idiot...i dont think i thought this true properly!! But saying that I think that getting to san simeon for the 1st night will get us up the road fairly quick and take some off the pressure off for the remainder of our few days!!

Also I double checked again and its actually 12.00 we should be landing but I would hope to be on the road as close as 2pm

Well yes, you'll have a more relaxed drive the next day into LA so thats good.

And 12 is definitely better than 2pm.

Theres 2 ways to get to san simeon from SF airport. Highway 1 and Highway 101. Highway 101 is a motorway, easy and quick and you can get to SS in about 4 hours. Highway 1 is the scenic road, slow, and will take maybe...6 hours? Possibly more. I've driven the cliff road in the dark and it can be white knuckles at times. However in the dark you (or your passenger anyway!) avoid the terror of seeing the 300 foot drop directly to your right!

It'll be an adventure either way. You're on holiday, the weather should be nice and its fun to drive at night with the roof down and the heater on. So just get some good sleep the night before.

Stojkovic

Bannerman7 wrote: »

How anyone can judge a bar by walking in and walking straight out again beats me.

I'm good.

InTheTrees

...and you can walk into some pretty dodgy bars in San Fransisco...

:eek:


(not that there's anything wrong with that...)

iusedtoknow

InTheTrees wrote: »

Your flight arrives at 2pm.

Best case you'll be sitting in your convertible ready to go at around 3pm.

Cancel the hotel in San Simeon. Book the first night in Monterey. You can get there around six or seven. Have a relaxing dinner, drive around a little.

The next day you get up early and drive highway one all the way to santa monica. It'll be a long day but you have a convertible and you're on the california coast and its not so far.

Then the next day you drive to San diego as planned.

Completely agree. I got into SF a couple of weeks ago at 2pm flying in from Heathrow. I was flying business and so was pretty fast off the plane, even then by the time I got through Immigration/Customs and had my bag it was 3:30 as there were a few international flights arriving. I had a ride home, but car hire isn't just out of arrivals, you need to take a people mover train to car rental, then find your car in a 6 story car park (tip...the space they say your car is in rarely is there...)

So in a best case , you're going to be heading on the 101 around 4pm which means you'll hit the silicone valley rush hour 1 hour later around Mountain view/Sunnyvale (google, yahoo, facebook).

Agree that you should aim to hit Monterey, stay there and head down from there. The 101 to Monterey is a pretty easy road, however I wouldn't even attempt the 1 to san simeon unless I had a death wish, or the ability to avoid jetlag and/or was arriving in at 10am or so

comewatmay

Drove this a couple of weeks ago. One of the most scenic drives I've ever been on absolutly beautiful.

Tips:

Stay your first night in Monterey
Get up early and set off maybe 7am
Do 17 mile drive/maybe aquarium but prob won't have time

Definetly take the coast road south
Stop in amazing restaurant called Nepthente - food delicious and the views while you eat are breathtaking
Definetly stop at Hearst castle me and my gf thought it was a real highlight of our trip
About 10 miles before it stop and beautiful sealiom colony watch them all lie out on the beach from only 10 yards away.
I'd then stay in Ventura beach it's a lovely spot and the. Drive on to San Diego.

To drive the coast road from Monterey to Ventura we left at 7am and arrived at midnight and that included stopping frequently, a hike in one of the national forests, lunch and a few hours in Hearst castle. The drive is truly amazing. Enjoy

InTheTrees

comewatmay wrote: »

Stop in amazing restaurant called Nepthente - food delicious and the views while you eat are breathtaking

One of my favourite places in the world. There's something incredibly tranquil about the place. You can just sit there for hours. Apparently it was some kind of love hideaway owned by Orson wells and Rita Heyworth.

I'm glad you had a good trip!

http://www.nepenthebigsur.com/

tricky D

Watch out for Condors soaring on thermals around Big Sur too.

MadsL

ColmBr wrote: »

Oh yeah and by the way, if you rent a car, DON'T rent with Alamo. their SF office and entire system is beyond a joke!

I will never rent with Alamo at SF again. I asked three times if a vehicle was 4x4 and by the time we got over the Donner Pass and I had a closer look and found I was driving a 2x4 I was facing a blizzard and a treacherous drive to Tahoe. The SUV was so bad we had to buy snow chains and even then got stuck.

:mad:

Poiteen

I can totally understand why this seems like a good idea, but to drive to San Simeon in the dark would be a total waste. The stretch of road between Monterey and San Simeon is the whole reason people take Highway 1 in the first place. The sun goes down before 7pm in October, and when I say the sun goes down, it takes less than 20 mins for it to be completely dark. You couldn't pay me enough money in the world to drive the crazy switchbacks of that section of the PCH after dark.

The other thing to remember is that you have allowed yourself really only enough time to physically get to San Diego without seeing much in between. Most of your sight-seeing will be done from the car. You should make sure that you are actually seeing all that the road has to offer.

corcaigh07

Kind of on topic, who are the best car rental company/website to hire from? I'm considering doing a 3 week tour of California from Late October-ish, start and finish in San Francisco. carhire3000.ie do a deal for 480 euro with LDW included and unlimited mileage, is that the best it gets?

InTheTrees

corcaigh07 wrote: »

Kind of on topic, who are the best car rental company/website to hire from? I'm considering doing a 3 week tour of California from Late October-ish, start and finish in San Francisco. carhire3000.ie do a deal for 480 euro with LDW included and unlimited mileage, is that the best it gets?

Remember the thanksgiving holiday in the us is the 28th November. Its as expensive as Christmas for travel. But it sounds like you'll just miss it.

ironclaw

InTheTrees wrote: »

You could take highway 101 and then go backwards up highway 1 to get to san simeon though, that may only take four or five hours...

Yeah just want to add this is entirely accurate. I was navigating this section:

http://goo.gl/maps/5sx6l

And because off a pitstop for the event, when leaving Lucerne we went on HWY101 instead of heading back to the I5. Biggest mistake in driving I've ever made. Easily cost us 2 hours. Having started the day in Klamath Falls! That said, I have the personal distinction of driving the entire length of the Oregon / Californian I5.

Granted its North of where you would be starting but if your anyway short for time, avoid the Highways. They are much, much slower.

Frankie4fingers

Just off the topic altogether I have applied to esta for a ho0liday visa and since i was in new york last year for 5 days i have already a visa !! Im just wondering will that be valid as it has all the new york details or do i need a new one??


Also My flight leaves dublin with a stop over in amsterdam for an hour and a half where i will then be for san fran...just wondering where will i meet immgration??

iusedtoknow

Frankie4fingers wrote: »

Just off the topic altogether I have applied to esta for a ho0liday visa and since i was in new york last year for 5 days i have already a visa !! Im just wondering will that be valid as it has all the new york details or do i need a new one??


Also My flight leaves dublin with a stop over in amsterdam for an hour and a half where i will then be for san fran...just wondering where will i meet immgration??

If it was the same passport, you can just login to ESTA and input the new address and you'll be fine.

You'll meet immigration at San Francisco International airport - it's usually pretty quick there.

Frankie4fingers

iusedtoknow wrote: »

If it was the same passport, you can just login to ESTA and input the new address and you'll be fine.

You'll meet immigration at San Francisco International airport - it's usually pretty quick there.

Thank You v much....very dunce about this stuff!! Also when I land in amsterdam where do i go like?? Do I have to check in again or am i transferred to straight over to the boarding gate for next flight?

iusedtoknow

Frankie4fingers wrote: »

Thank You v much....very dunce about this stuff!! Also when I land in amsterdam where do i go like?? Do I have to check in again or am i transferred to straight over to the boarding gate for next flight?

You'll have your bags checked through to San Francisco from Ireland. Just follow the flight connections signs and look at where your next flight is going from. You'll probably need to change terminals.
You won't need to check in again, but you may need to go through another security check. Last time I did Amsterdam it was pretty easy