San Francisco to Los Angeles, California
A two day drive between two major cities on the most scenic California highway, Highway 1.
Immediately after completing a 4.5 day cross-country Amtrak train trip, my brother and I picked up a rental car from the SF airport and headed out on Highway 1. Big Sur is a section of the scenic route between SF and LA that stretches for about 90 miles and offers camping, hiking and lodging along the way. It’s super popular for driving at basically any time of the year, and luckily for us, we couldn’t have had better weather.
We took off around 11am from SFO and set our first destination to be Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park just outside of Santa Cruz. It took about an hour and 20 minutes to get there, and since we were going southbound we didn’t run into any traffic. I’ve wanted to see Redwood trees for years because I’ve been fascinated by their age, size and beauty.
When parking at the start park, opt to say you want to pay at the convenience store inside instead of with the guy at the booth. We saved $8 by doing so.
The park is pretty big and they offer train rides that go for about 1.5 hours through the park. Tickets are $20 something a person, but they only depart a couple times a day. We ended up missing the last train and instead did a 20 minute walk on a 1 mile path in the forest. It was the perfect amount of time.
After leaving the state park, we were on track to make it halfway through our drive to LA by early evening. Since a majority of the trip was alongside cliffs, through forests and around mountains, we couldn’t guarantee cell phone service. So we GPS routed our way when we could, and just adapted to the rest of the way.
Just before sunset we rounded cliff corners and uncovered some absolutely breathtaking views with crashing waves and dramatic clouds. My brother and I pulled over about 40 minutes before the Bixby Bridge and took several dozen photos.
We stayed at a hotel in San Simeon, a small town halfway through the journey between SF and LA. The hotel was the Silver Surf Motel amongst a strip of accommodations right across from the beach. It was simple, cheap and just enough to help with the exhaustion after a long day of driving.
Even though it’s possible to do the entire trip in one day, in order to really appreciate the views, the weather and the beaches I highly advise splitting the trip into at least 2 days. Three might be pushing it, but it’s really all about how you decide to pace the drive.
What ended up being great about staying in San Simeon were a couple of the sites nearby that allowed for some walking around and exploring. One of them was Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery about 10 minutes north of San Simeon. Another site a few minutes closer to the motel was Hearst Castle.
On day 2 we drove the rest of the way through to LA on Highway 1, winding around curves, mountains and down through to Santa Barbara to Malibu, Santa Monica and Los Angeles. We met a couple friends in LA, got pre-drinks at Sunny Spot in Venice, had dinner at The Misfit Restaurant + Bar in Santa Monica, and finished the evening with drinks on the rooftop of the Hotel Shangri-La overlooking the Santa Monica Pier and beach after dark. It was also the first time I had used an app called Hotel Tonight, which turned out to be amazing for finding a place to stay.
The hotel we stayed in was called The Garland, located in North Hollywood. Our room was normally $350+ a night, but we ended up scoring it for $150. It was beautiful, comfortable and pretty perfect in every way.
In order to continue our journey eastward, we departed early in the morning and scouted out the Hollywood Walk of Fame, some Scientology weirdness and roamed around downtown LA for a few hours before the Griffith Observatory opened up for a view of the Hollywood sign around noon.
I have a tendency to pack in a ton of things into each trip, which really maximizes my journey, money and time. This SF to LA trip is technically a vacation in of itself, but was only the second leg of a 3 part journey across the country and through the southwest.
