It isn’t my first time in California. I have been there a couple of time and made several of the national parks but this time I planned an intensive and optimized 2 weeks round trip around California. As opposed to my Last trips, we didn’t make it to Grand Canyon, Death Valley and Las Vegas. However, you could easily add a 3rd week and squish these between your visit to Yosemite and sequoia.
Anyway, this time we focused on a trip starting from San Francisco down to San Diego where my brother was studying at this time. As we are not really fan of cities and we already visited a few times San Francisco and Los Angeles we didn’t spend too much time in the first and skipped the latest (too much traffic, lots of time lost).
Day 0 – Hello San Francisco
We started our journey in San Francisco. Landing in the afternoon and having booked an hostel close to the train and airport station, we could drop our bags and take the first train to San Francisco central station.
We took the bus from there to reach the starting section of the famous cable care and drove through the city till the end of the track. We walked to pier 51, watched the seals and grabbed dinner. We jumped in the first metro station and made it back to the hotel.
Day 1 – Road Tripping
We took the car through the city and drove over the golden gate. We stopped at the national park area and walked up to the viewpoint for a couple of pictures. We were extremely lucky as the weather was beautiful and the Fogg was slowly settling on the city. This trip we skipped the John Muir National Forest as I did it a couple of years back and we were anyway heading North to redwoods national forest. If you have never been to that park, I strongly recommend you to visit it. Be sure to book both parking lot and transfer bus between the park and the parking. As this national park is right next to San Francisco, it is extremely popular and crowded. Back in the days we could go with our own car…now it isn’t possible anymore.
Instead we drove up to Arcata where we would spend the first night.
The costal road takes more time than the highway but as we skipped the park we had time. We saw some whales and seals. Along the way you find some super cute coastal restaurants or bars where you can eat oysters and sea food.
We arrived only late in Arcata and you could only find fast foods and hotels there. We dropped our bags, check-in and took the car to the previous city, Eureka, to have dinner.
Day 2 – Redwoods National Forest
Today we visit Redwoods national forest. This park is beautiful and immense! Plan ahead what routes and itinerary you are interested in! We started the park by visiting Fearn Canyon. The road to the canyon requires a good 4×4 car as you will cross multiple potholes. We reached the entrance of the canyon early in the morning and had the chance to visit it without any other tourists. This place is where they recorded parts of the movie Jurassic Park 1. We followed different key routs such as Carl-Barrel road, Newton B scenic road which took us more or less the day.
We then exit the park and drove all the way to White City.
Day 2 – crater lake and lava beds national park
We diced to add a little extension to our trip as we only had lava beds national monument scheduled and that we were not prepared for long hours of cave explorations. We left early in the morning to reach carter lake which was 2h away more or less.
Crater lake is an ancient meteorite impact zone which was filled with rain water over past centuries. We drove halfway of the crater to have different angles on that beautiful crater lake. The water has a supernatural color, breathtaking. We had some Fogg gaining the top of the mountain (rim of the crater) from one side. A beautiful sight!
We then drove the way back and pursued our journey to Lava beds national monument. We arrived 2h before visiting center closure and had enough time to visit 3 caves categorized as simple and medium.
We definitely were lacking flashlights and helmets for this park. The other caves were either experts or closed due to bats nesting. While we explored the few key caves, this park offers an amazing playground for cave lovers and explorers.
Some caves contained ice lakes or a unique fern vegetation!
After our visit we took the road to reach our hotel in Burney
The road to Burney is insane. We had so much forest, it never stopped. I found there my favorite pine trees! They take shades of blue and green which is simply unique. Their needles are organized in a beautiful corolla stacked on-top of each other. With the light rain we had and the peaking sun rays, the colors were just out of this world.
We arrived in Burney late night and just had time for a dinner.
Day 3 – Lassen volcanic park
Before leaving Burney, we were told to have a look at Burney falls. We definitely were not disappointed. That place was breathing. The waterfall was falling right into a lake where we were lucky enough to spot river otters!
After spending some time there, we started our journey to toward Lassen Volcanic Park.
Lassen volcanic park is a baby version of the famous Yellowstone national park. While it does not have any active water geysers, you will find multiple hot pots and smoke chimneys. The park is quite big and takes you close to a day if you really want to explore it in depth. The park was also well structured for our journey as we entered from one side and left it on the other, well located on our trajectory for the next hotel stop.
Must see points are devil’s kitchen and sulfur works. While the latter is next to the main road, the first requires a 2 to 3 hours hike (4-6 hours round trip). The trail consists in two sections. A first flat approach and a second steep ascent. It might. This might change as we had to go that way because of trail closure and maintenance. It might also seem a lot but to be fair…it is worth the effort. Additionally, it is a key point of the park. Overall, this park offers stunning landscapes filled with extraordinary and un-real colors.
After our visit we took the car to Reno.
Reno is a big city filled with casinos. As we were not so much into casinos and already experienced Las Vegas, we just slept and tried to catch up sleep before resuming our journey =).
Day 4 – Road to Yosemite and Devil’s Postpiles national parks.
The drive from Reno to devil’s postpiles brings you through lake Their, lake mono, lake mammoth and the mammoth ski resort area. The entry of the park consists in a pretty steep road down to the postpile stop. Note that depending on the season you plan to visit, you might have to leave the car at the top and take a bus down. The hike from the ranger station to the postpiles is beautiful and simple. This particular hexagonal stone formation is the result of a directional ice crystal growth and stone compaction or splitting. An extraordinary sight and an interesting scientific phenomenon. Next stop of that park are the Rainbow falls. The hike to reach them is a bit longer (something like 1 or 2 hours one way) but is worth the effort. The rainbow Falls aren’t named as such without reason. Most of the day, a beautiful rainbow can be observed depending on where you stand. A beautiful waterfall that I could add on my waterfalls list=).
Once we finished with the park, we took the car and drove part of the way back till the east entrance of Yosemite national park. Our first day in Yosemite mostly consisted in exploring the upper eastern part and in reaching our hotel close to the western gates.
We spent the first night in El Portal. This place is located right in front of the western entry. During the night we forgot to close our window and had the visit of a racoon that went through our stuff to find biscuits. When I woke up because of the noise, I saw him slowly walking back toward the balcony. I made my way there and found out he was trying to open the biscuit bag. I just managed to scare him in time to recover it and close the window ^^
Day 5 – Yosemite’s clouds rest
After our night and its unexpected moments, we left the hotel at 04:00 AM. From the hotel it took us 2 hours to reach the parking lot at lake xxx. We had breakfast in the car which allowed us to win some time. Once arrived, we took our backpacks and started our hike towards clouds rest. Then hike was supposed to take 11h back and forth but took us roughly 8.
While the morning was quite fresh, it quickly warmed up. We saw some deers, chipmunks and golden mantle squirrels on our way.
The hike begins with a steep ascent until you reach the crossing road for the sunrise lakes. After that point, the elevation is milder and the hike offers breathtaking landscapes.
After a lunch with a breathtaking view, we made our way back to the car, drove to Tunnel viewpoint to enjoy the sunset and ended our day at Half dome village.
Day 6 – Yosemite to Sequoia’s King Canyon
The following day we visited Vernal Falls and hiked all the way to Nevada Falls. After our round hike we made another stop at Tunnel view and drove all the way to Glacier point. The view from there is simply worth the trip!
Note as well that if you are doing the half dome ascent, this is a good starting point as you might have to walk slightly longer on a flat section and avoid the ascent of both waterfalls.
At the end of the day we drove to our next stop, Fresno.
Day 7 – Sequoia national park
Starting from Fresno we made it on time for an early entry in King’s Canyon national park. We drove all the way to Cedar grove and back. On our way back we took a short cut to reach Sequoia national park. Depending on your time, the drive to Cedar grove is not the most scenic road. The first part overlooking the whole canyon is definitely worth the stop, the rest depends on whether you want to go for a hike or not.
We drove through Sequoia, stopped at a few key point and finished our day at Three Rivers.
Day 8 – Sequoia np to Barstow
Next day was our highlight day! While driving through sequoia, a brown bear crossed our road! What an unique moment! We were joking the whole trip about the eventuality to see a bear and were slightly sad we didn’t get the chance to see one! And then here it happens, the last day in sequoia and the last day of our national park visit before San Diego.
The rest of the day was splendid, went through the famous tunnel log, had different hikes in the park and left the park late in the afternoon.
The rest of the trip was spent between driving to San Diego and spending some family time there with my brother, surfing and vising the area.
From there you can simply add and modify the journey depending on the number of travel days you have!
Budget and Hotels where we could stay
we stayed in following places to ensure a low budget:
all of these places were worth their money and were all clean. Regency Inn was probably the lowes « quality » but price wise cheapest that we could find near San Francisco. It also is quite well located right next to the train station.
Best Westerns, and Comfort Inn are good values for the price.
Nugget was a pure casino hotel. was cheap but nothing included.
Shasta Pines was cheap and clean but bit shady for the place. Breakfast was incl. but don’t expect to be mindblown ! it’s a wrap, one per persone (yes ^^)
| Regency Inn at San Francisco Airport | Breakfast incl. |
| Best Western Arcata Inn | Breakfast incl. |
| Best Western Crater Lake Highway White City/Medford | Breakfast incl. |
| Shasta Pines Motel | Breakfast incl. |
| Nugget Casino Resort | No Breakfast |
| Yosemite View Lodge | No Breakfast |
| Yosemite half dome village | No Breakfast |
| Best Western PLUS Fresno Inn | Breakfast incl. |
| Comfort Inn & Suites Sequoia Kings Canyon – Three Rivers | Breakfast incl. |
| california inn | Breakfast incl. |
As restaurants during your trip, i definitly to recommend to stop at Longhorn, Outback steakhouses (lower price) and Yar House (higher price). These are my favorite Steak House chains =)
Discover our short movie of the roadtrip!
Youtube video can be found here!
Budget and Expenses
Flight was by far the most expensive, followed by hotels and food.
| Flight | 1060,35 |
| Car | 304,875 |
| Hotels | 637,95 |
| Food | 414,36 |
| Gas | 190,95 |
| Phone | 14,225 |
| Transport | 5,025 |
| Cash | 107,5 |
Price in CHF, per person.
Looking for other hiking or travel destinations? Check here!
Looking for other places to stay ? check here!
Or do you simply have a question? Contact me!