California Road Trip: The Best Stops and Things to Do

In late summer 2024 my husband and I went on a big bucket list trip that has been years in the making: the California road trip.

This is arguably one of the most popular road trips in the world given the vast difference in scenery from one place to the next. From small seaside towns like Carmel to the chaotic excitement of Hollywood and the breathtaking untouched beauty of Yosemite National Park, there’s something for everyone to enjoy.

It’s one of my favourite trips I’ve ever done and I would highly recommend that everyone does it at least once in their life. After reading this guide, you’ll realise why.

The California Road Trip: How Long Do You Need?

First things first, California covers a large area and you don’t want to have too little time to see as much as possible. Ideally, aim for at least two weeks, or even three if you’re allowed to take this much time in one go for your annual leave.

I’m a freelancer so I can be flexible but my husband has a full-time corporate job, hence we only had 12 days to play with for our Cali road trip.

At first I was concerned this wouldn’t be enough time as we also road-tripped to Las Vegas at the end for a couple of nights in Sin City. However, it felt like we were away a long time and we managed to do everything we had on our itinerary.

We did have to prioritise though so it didn’t feel like we were rushing, so the more time you have, the better!

Flights from the UK to Your California Road Trip

One of the most common starting points for a Cali road trip is San Francisco or San Diego, finishing in the other city depending on whether you travel north or south down West Coast USA.

As we had limited time, we chose not to visit San Diego this time as we wanted to prioritise Vegas, but we hope to visit in the future!

Flying to San Francisco from the UK is actually more straightforward than you may initially think. You can fly direct from London Heathrow with British Airways, or you can get a connection if you’re based up north (we flew from Manchester to Heathrow first). The Heathrow to San Fran flight takes roughly 11 hours. 

It’s similar for San Diego, but you have to fly from Heathrow to LAX first before grabbing a connecting flight to San Diego (or you can drive which takes a couple of hours).

We dropped off the car in Vegas and flew from there back to Manchester direct with Virgin. This flight took roughly 9 hours.

Renting a Car for Your California Road Trip

Renting a car in the USA is always super easy because Americans drive everywhere (they have to, because everything is so spread out!).

Here are the most popular companies:

• Budget
• Hertz
• Alamo 

You can compare the cheapest prices on Kayak.

I would recommend picking up a car from the airport where you land to start your road trip, and then dropping off at the airport where you finish your road trip.

When we landed in San Francisco, hubby and I decided not to grab a car straight away because we wanted to stay downtown and not have the pressure of driving and parking in the chaos.

We had 3 nights exploring San Fran first before heading back to the airport to pick up the car on the fourth day and begin our California road trip.

California Road Trip: Must-See Places

Let’s get into the good stuff! Below are all places my husband and I stayed in on our California trip, and I can attest to the fact that they’re all incredible and worth seeing.

The only regret I have is that we didn’t have time for San Diego. But, alas, there’s always next time!

1. San Francisco

San Francisco seems to be a city that gets overlooked by Brits (maybe because it’s so far away?) but this is a travesty.

San Fran is one of my favourite cities in the whole world — it’s got such charm and charisma, and there’s a bunch of cool stuff to see and do.

You can take the metro directly from the airport to downtown to save money on a taxi and it takes around 30 minutes. We stayed in the Union Square area so we could be close to all the action, but many people also choose to stay closer to the water. 

Because the first day is essentially travelling, we only had two full days in San Fran. On the first day, we explored ourselves. On the second day, we took a day trip with a tour company, which was a good way of seeing more points of interest in a faster amount of time.

First Day

You have to ride the trolley as a San Fran tourist! I think you pay $8 return or something like that, or it’s a bit more for a day ticket but you can ride it as much as you like during that day. 

We rode it towards the coastline from Union Square and went to Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf, where you can see the sea lions and experience amazing seafood. FYI, the sea lions are most active in the mornings, and bigger crowds tend to gather from 11am onwards.

On a clear day you can see Alcatraz Prison and the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance too! 

We also went to see Lombard Street (the world’s curviest street), The Painted Ladies and the Mrs Doubtfire House that day (2640 Steiner Street). The weather was beautiful – sunshine, clear skies and not a cloud in sight – we felt very lucky! 

Second Day 

We booked a day tour to Muir Woods, Napa Valley and Sonoma on our second full day in San Francisco

• Muir Woods: This National Monument features huge redwood trees and scenic hiking trails, and is such a great experience.
• Napa Valley: This is the famous wine region where we visited an incredible winery surrounded by the Mayacamas and Vaca mountains.
• Sonoma Plaza: We stopped in this cute little town square for lunch and it had such a traditional American feel. We loved it!

We also went over the Golden Gate Bridge on this day and were supposed to go to a viewpoint to take photos. However, it was so foggy we couldn’t see the bridge at all and had to abandon it!

I was a bit gutted about that but apparently it’s rare to see the bridge clear as there are always clouds around it.

It would have been nice to have an extra day in San Fran to see Alcatraz and just mooch around the city more, but I do feel like we got to see the main highlights during our stay.

2. Yosemite National Park

Yosemite National Park was the next stop on our California road trip. We collected our rental car from San Francisco airport to head to a town on the edge of the park and stay there for the night, in preparation for exploring the next day.

The drive was a fair few hours but the scenery was unbelievable. We were then up early the next morning to spend a full day in Yosemite — and it was absolutely stunning.

Here are some points of interest I recommend seeing:

• Yosemite Falls
• Tunnel View
• Half Dome
• Bridalveil Fall
• El Capitan
• Cathedral Peak

There are more as you venture further into the park but as we only had several hours before we had to start driving to Carmel for our next overnight stop, we couldn’t see everything.

What we did see was well worth it! FYI I also had the tastiest breakfast sandwich at the park cafe: Degnan’s Kitchen.

Another FYI is that it can be rather cool in the park even in late summer/early autumn, and especially in the mornings. I recommend taking layers including a raincoat and comfy walking shoes for any hikes you may want to do!

3. Carmel

Carmel-by-the-sea is the cutest little beach city on the Monterey Peninsula, known for its unique fairytale cottages, artistic community and famous past Mayor Clint Eastwood.

It is rather small and easily walkable, so you don’t need long to experience the charm it has to offer. We were there one night and unfortunately it was raining the day we were exploring downtown, but it didn’t ruin the cutesy vibes!

You have to go there to see the fairytale cottages alone — walking past these feels like you just stepped into a Disney movie. You can see why artists, poets and writers love Carmel, often creating works based on its charisma, like Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

You can grab a free map from the library and go on your very own cottage hunt.

Why does Carmel have fairytale cottages? Local builder Hugh Comstock designed and created numerous whimsical houses inspired by the illustrations of Arthur Rackham’s fairy tales, including Hansel and Gretel. This storybook theme then continued around town to make up a lot of shops, inns, galleries and homes in the area. 

21 of the original Hugh Comstock cottages still exist in Carmel, with 11 of them clustered together just a short walk from downtown. This article has a map to help you easily find them. 

It’s just so fun to walk around Carmel and, if you have time, hit the beach for some sunbathing and surfing.

A lot of people visit Pebble Beach nearby and do the 17-Mile Drive open to the public from sunrise to sunset. There’s an admission fee but you also receive a map which tells how you where to drive along the steep and winding roads to get the best views of the coastline, forests, wildlife and beaches. It’s supposed to be gorgeous!

4. Los Angeles

From Carmel we had quite the drive to LA (we’re talking six hours). Usually, California road trippers would take this opportunity to carry on down Highway 1 through the Big Sur and see all the incredible things it has to offer (including the Bixby bridge from the opening titles of Big Little Lies). Unfortunately, a 6.8-mile stretch of Highway 1 in Big Sur was closed due to fissures so we weren’t able to do this. 

Instead, we had to travel inland for a bit before getting back on the famous Pacific Coast Highway closer to LA for its amazing coastline views. We ended up driving past the Malibu beach houses at sunset which was really special.

Popular Tourist Attractions in LA

I’ve been fortunate to visit LA a few times but this was my husband’s first time so I wanted him to see all the popular sights. We only had two nights in LA but I feel like I took him on a whistle-stop tour and he really enjoyed it.

This is what we saw and did:

• Beverly Hills sign and drive around (the palm trees are so tall and pretty!)
• Beverly Wiltshire (the Pretty Woman hotel)
• Rodeo Drive
• Hollywood Walk of Fame
• Griffith Observatory/Hollywood sign
• The Grove outdoor mall
• Sunset Boulevard to see Chateau Marmont (famous celebrity hotel) and Oppenheim Group office (Selling Sunset fans, IYKYK)

Keep in mind that it always takes longer than you think to drive anywhere in LA. Locals who complain about the traffic aren’t joking around. My last visit was 2016 and I can’t remember it ever being as busy as it was (not sure if it had something to do with the fact that it was late summer?).

Anyway, if you have a booking for an attraction or a meal reservation and you’re driving, allow plenty of time to get there and park. You won’t regret it!

More Attractions in LA

Speaking of having more time, if you choose to stay in LA longer, you could head downtown (they have some awesome rooftop bars), see a Lakers, Rams or a Dodgers game, go to Universal Studios and even venture to Anaheim to visit Disney’s Magic Kingdom or California Adventure.

Santa Monica and Venice Beach are must-visits. We pit-stopped on our way down south along the coastline before making our way to our next overnight stop.

We also did some beach-hopping at Long Beach, Huntington Beach and Newport Beach before reaching Laguna Beach. The weather was just perfection — 20 odd degrees Celsius and super sunny!

5. Laguna Beach

Laguna Beach is roughly a couple of hours from Santa Monica (with traffic). However, because we spent time beach-hopping, we didn’t arrive until late afternoon.

We headed straight to Main Beach to watch the sunset and it was simply breathtaking. The next day we walked around downtown, popped in and out of shops and checked out a couple more beaches before heading to our final stop on our California road trip.

Here are some of the best points of interest:

• Thousand Steps Beach
• Treasure Island Beach
• Victoria Beach
• Aliso Beach
• Heisler Park
• Laguna Coast Wilderness Park
• Crystal Cove State Park

Laguna has such a community feel to it and didn’t feel overly touristy. We enjoyed using this stop as a bit of a breather after the craziness of LA. 

6. Palm Springs

Palm Springs is approximately a two-hour drive from Laguna Beach through really cool mountain scenery. When you hit all the tall and wide palm trees, you know you’ve arrived at your destination (trust me, the name then makes sense!).

This stunning city has a downtown area that’s small and walkable with big chains and independent boutiques alike. You can check out the Walk of Stars, which is a walk of fame that honours various celebrities who have lived in the greater Palm Springs area. Marilyn Monroe even has a huge statue dedicated to her.

You can also visit Elvis’ home at 845 West Chino Canyon Road where he spent about three months a year in the 1970s. His Honeymoon Hideaway at 1350 Ladera Circle in Palm Springs’ Vista Las Palmas neighborhood that he shared with Priscilla is no longer open to the public.

On Thursday nights, Palm Springs has a night market downtown which is so much fun to walk around. There is often live music, as well as food and trinket stalls.

If you have time to see the Indian Canyons or Joshua Tree National Park, go for it as they’re both supposed to be unbelievable. We did manage to see some of the famous Yucca trees on the way to Vegas so I don’t feel like we missed out, but it would have been nice to visit Joshua Tree if we had the time. It’s only a short drive from Palm Springs.

Calico Ghost Town

Two hours away from Palm Springs is Calico Ghost Town in San Bernardino County, which is definitely worth seeing. Located in the Calico Mountains of the Mojave Desert this former mining town originated in 1881. It was later converted into a county park but much of its culture has been preserved and it’s like stepping back in time. 

There is a small admission fee and it only takes an hour to walk around it leisurely popping in and out of shops, but it’s definitely worth doing!  

It’s then another two-hour drive to Las Vegas, where we spent the last two nights of our trip. (Spoiler alert: so much fun!)

Final Thoughts on This California Road Trip

The California road trip is a once-in-a-lifetime vacation and I’m so thankful my husband and I got to experience it together.

Like I mentioned before, we could have cut out Las Vegas (which is Nevada, not California) in favour of San Diego. That said, we’d both never been to Vegas together so we wanted to do this instead. If we had more time we would have definitely ventured to San Diego, but there’s always next time!

If we had more time we could have also made a few more overnight stops along the west coast, or even extended our stays where we did stop. Even so, I felt like it was an almost-perfect trip and I have zero complaints. 

Plenty of sunshine, palm trees, beaches, mountains, celebrity hotspots — California really is somewhere special, and I hope you get to experience it if you haven’t already!

Share this article or pin for later:

Where would you stop over for your California road trip? LMK in the comments!