California Road Trip - Overview

We were in California for a two week in July - our second road trip for the year.  

We had an amazing time.  In terms of food, California didn't really have as much to offer as Kyushu :p but it was a rather different experience and we really enjoyed ourselves.  

I have been really busy with everything else that I have only got the chance to write about this trip in December :-S

I will try my best to recap everything I could think of but you may find there will be more photos than description.. 

Our route is pretty standard - drove along the pacific highway and dropped by the little town along the way.

Overview: 

Day 1 Capitola beach, Mystery spot

Day 2 Gilroy Garlic Festival, Stanford

Day 3 San Jose

Day 4/5 San Francisco

Day 6 Sausalito, Muir Wood National Park

Day 7 Napa Valley

Day 8 Monterey, Carmel

Day 9 Big Sur

Day 10 San Simeon, Hearst Castle, San Luis Obispo

Day 11/12   Los Angeles

Day 13 Fender factory, La Jolla

Day 14 San Diego

I have a friend living in San Jose and she has kindly let us stay with her a few days so we have used that as a base for the first few days.  

We then hired a car using the website Holiday Auto.  The price was very competitive (+cashback from topcashback).  However, you will only only find out exactly which car rental company you are hiring from after you have made the booking - which could be risky.  We got our car from "Dollars" near union square on the 5th day and return at San Diego on Day 13 - total USD$ 380 for 8 days.  

The pick up location was very central but it took us 2 hours to queue (there were only 2-3 staff with > 30 customers) and wait for our car to be ready.  We thought we went there early already but apparently not!

I used Yelp a lot when I was doing my research.  There seems to be more reviews there than Tripadvisor/other review websites.   

We were going to go to Yosemite and Mono lake instead on Day 6/7.  However, there was a huge forest fire at El Portal the week before.  The road was later reopened but from the webcam on their website.  It was still all smokey and we thought there is no point of driving all the way there - covered in smoke and not having the best view.  Therefore, we have decided to leave it for another time and went to Muir wood/ Sausalito and Napa instead.  

The hotels around California is not cheap.  I am thankful that I have friends who allowed us to stay for a few nights so that we could save some hotel costs.  You have other options from airbnb but they are generally more strict in terms of cancellation.  I always go for places where they offer free cancellation - especially with road trip.  You might want to change the schedule based on weather/ traffic / forest fire!