June 6, 2009
Vacation question: California coast
Reader submitted question: I'm heading home from Iraq in 3 weeks and I'm trying to come up with a trip that will be fun for the family. It would be me and the wife, an 8 year old girl, a 2 year old boy, and a 1 year old boy. I was thinking that a nice trip along the California coast would be great for them, start in San Francisco. and work our way down to San Diego, stop at the big parks, sea towns, do hollywood, alcatraz, the zoo and sea world. take like 10 days to do it. Does this sound like a good trip for little kids?
Because of their age difference it's tough making them all happy, but they are fine driving in the car, and they all love to check out new things. Any other trip ideas?
A few ideas:
Northern CA has alot for families. Monterey, Bodega Bay, and Napa are fun, quiet places for a family to spend time together. I would start off in SF (ChinaTown, Pier 39, Ripleys Musuem, etc), travel to Monterey (golf and beaches) and then to Napa (wine country). Vallejo has a Marine World which can be a pit stop for the kids and Fairfield (where I lived) has the Jelly Belly Factory which is a very cool spot to take the kids while traveling around. From there, I would travel down the coastline and hit up all the attractions down to Disney World and finally to San Diego. Because of the kids, it will be hard to please them all the time, but remember its your vacation too.
Since you are starting in SF, make sure when you travel south, take Route 1 (aka Pacific Coast Highway). Along the way, you should stop off at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, take the 17 mile drive in Carmel, Big Sur, and Hearst Castle. If you are around San Luis Obispo on Thursdays, they have a street fair on the main drag. Further south, there is Universal Studios, Disneyland, Leggoland, San Diego Wild Animal Park, Seaworld, and San Diego Zoo.
Much better than the zoo is the San Diego Wild Animal Park - it's affiliated with the San Diego Zoo, but it's about 30 miles away in the northern part of the county. Absolutely blows any other normal zoo away. You get much closer to most of the animals than you would in a normal zoo, and they also have various areas where you can pet animals and feed birds, etc. The kids will absolutely love it. The best part is the huge (several hundred acre) open meadow where all of the animals (no predators obviously) live in the wild together - giraffes, rhinos, African deer, wildebeests - it's so awesome. If you really want to go all out, you can spend about $100 pp and take a safari ride through that open area - I didn't do it, but I wish I did, it looked like such an experience. Even if you don't do that, you can take a tram around the same area, and it's still awesome.
Related: LA to San Francisco, CA road trip, 17 mile drive in CA
Posted by James Trotta at June 6, 2009 6:43 AM
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.travel-plan-idea.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1040
I did this trip last summer.
You and the kids would love doing the open air train ride through the Redwoods just north of Santa Cruz called Roaring Camp Railroad. Very scenic and relaxing. About 90 min. drive from San Fransisco. I did Hwy. 1 all the way to San Luis Obispo. Monterey a must see - try renting bikes and follow the path along the ocean that goes though town. Carmel beach is gorgeous.
Morro Bay has beaches and a nice downtown with good places to eat. Drive out to the rock at night.
Enjoy the small towns along the coast - I'd recommend to check them out one by one on the Internet before going so you'll know which are fun to stop at for you and your family.
The Big Sur stretch of highway is more remote and rustic - - make sure you pack a cooler of drinks and snacks.
I went inland on Hwy 101 to speed my way back to San Fransisco before heading home to Texas.
All of the suggestions above are great however I would make 1 correction, Napa Valley is NORTH of San Francisco while every other destination is to the SOUTH heading towards San Diego so heading to Napa Valley AFTER Monterey would make no sense as you would have to backtrack a long way north. The better idea would be to first visit Napa Valley and then head South back across the GG Bridge for the rest of your trip. Have fun
Posted by: Mark at June 11, 2009 6:49 AMSusanna - can you provide additional information about the open air train ride? That sounds fantastic! Thanks for your other great advice too.
Posted by: Catherine at June 20, 2009 12:50 AM