California Road Trip

DH and I are planning a 10 day road trip from San Francisco to San Diego next year. Those of you who are familiar with CA, are there any must sees we need to add to our itinerary? We have already been to San Fran so we will only be spending a day there. On our list so far is Yosemite, Death Valley, Catalina Island. We are big into nature/outdoors activities but want to get a glimpse of the cities as well.

Re: California Road Trip

You're going to be all over the state if you want to go from Yosemite and Death Valley to Catalina... there's really not a whole lot out that way besides desert, until you get a lot closer to LA/Long Beach (probably where you'll take the ferry to Catalina Island).

If you head south from Death Valley where it connects to I-15 west, there's a little town called Baker that's called the "Gateway to Death Valley" and has the world's largest thermometer, and a little further south/west right off the highway is a ghost town called Calico. Or if you drive southwest from Death Valley and stop in Kernville, you can go whitewater rafting (get reservations first). That's really all I've got for the eastern part of the state though, we're not big desert people.

After you're done with Catalina, I'd recommend driving down the coast highway to get to San Diego. There's a point where you have to get on I-5 going from Orange to San Diego county, but you can hop off again in Oceanside and continue through all the towns as you drive south. There are a lot of places to stop and things to see (actually, you could make a day of Long Beach itself too), it just depends on how long you have and what you're interested in.

Re: California Road Trip

Carmel, Hearst Castle, Moro Bay, Santa Barbara, Mission in San Juan Capistrano are some of my suggestions....of course there's a ton to see and do in LA.