2 weeks in California - how do I know what's "too much"??

roxysmum123

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jun 1, 2011
I'm looking at a 2 week California trip - this may very well by our one and only visit to the beautiful state. I'm thinking 2-3 days in each destination should be sufficient, am I overestimating things? Underestimating them? How do you keep a reasonable itinerary??
Disneyland is a must, but still researching all the other spots we can get to and enjoy :)

TIA!
 
I think it depends on where you're going and what spots you'd like to see. California is big, so travel time may a bit more than you would expect. But you can easily fill 2 weeks vacationing here.

Where were you planning to go?
 
I think it depends on where you're going and what spots you'd like to see. California is big, so travel time may a bit more than you would expect. But you can easily fill 2 weeks vacationing here.

Where were you planning to go?

Would like to do San Fran, San Diego, Napa, LA, Big Sur, Disneyland....but looking at a map I think I'm gonna have to make some choices.
 
How important is Disneyland to your trip in terms of time? I know this is the DIS and most will recommend 4-5 days there, but if I only had one trip to CA, I would actually consider skipping it (blasphemy I know, lol) or maybe just going 1-2 days there. But for now I will assume you want to spend 3 or 4 days at Disneyland.

Fly in San Diego

San Diego: 2 days

Drive San Diego to Disneyland about 2 hours.

Disneyland +\- LA and Orange County: 5 days. I personally am not a big fan of the tourist sites in LA and wouldn't spend a lot of time there personally or skip it entirely, but that's just me.

Drive up Hwy 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) from Disneyland to Monterey: 1 days. I personally would consider taking driving up halfway and staying somewhere on the coast such as Morro Bay so that you can make plenty of stops along the coast, but you can do the drive in 1 day if you really want to. Last time I did it we actually took 3 days driving.

Big Sur/Monterey/Carmel: 2 days

Drive Monterey to SF ~2-3 hrs

San Francisco: 3 days

Drive SF to Napa:1-2 hours

Napa: 1 day. There are several Michelin star restaurants in the Napa area, particularly Yountville if that interests you, outside the wineries of course.

Fly out of SFO, Oakland, or Sacramento.

-----

Potential places to consider cutting time:
Cut down time at Disneyland
Skip all non-Disneyland sites in LA and Orange County
Skip San Diego or Napa

Potential places to add time:
Pacific Coast Highway drive (Morro Bay, San Simeon, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, etc )
Monterey and Big Sur
 
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How important is Disneyland to your trip in terms of time? I know this is the DIS and most will recommend 4-5 days there, but if I only had one trip to CA, I would actually consider skipping it (blasphemy I know, lol) or maybe just going 1-2 days there. But for now I will assume you want to spend 3 or 4 days at Disneyland.

Fly in San Diego

San Diego: 2 days

Drive San Diego to Disneyland about 2 hours.

Disneyland +\- LA and Orange County: 5 days. I personally am not a big fan of the tourist sites in LA and wouldn't spend a lot of time there personally or skip it entirely, but that's just me.

Drive up Hwy 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) from Disneyland to Monterey: 1 days. I personally would consider taking driving up halfway and staying somewhere on the coast such as Morro Bay so that you can make plenty of stops along the coast, but you can do the drive in 1 day if you really want to. Last time I did it we actually took 3 days driving.

Big Sur/Monterey/Carmel: 2 days

Drive Monterey to SF ~2-3 hrs

San Francisco: 3 days

Drive SF to Napa:1-2 hours

Napa: 1 day. There are several Michelin star restaurants in the Napa area, particularly Yountville if that interests you, outside the wineries of course.

Fly out of SFO, Oakland, or Sacramento.

-----

Potential places to consider cutting time:
Cut down time at Disneyland
Skip all non-Disneyland sites in LA and Orange County
Skip San Diego or Napa

Potential places to add time:
Pacific Coast Highway drive (Morro Bay, San Simeon, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, etc )
Monterey and Big Sur


That actually looks like a pretty fantastic plan! Would prob drop the DL/LA area to 3 days, but this gives me a great starting point. Thank you so much for your insight!
 
That actually looks like a pretty fantastic plan! Would prob drop the DL/LA area to 3 days, but this gives me a great starting point. Thank you so much for your insight!
Sure, anytime. I hope you enjoy your visit to California! Let me know if you have any other questions.
 
Just wanted to say to be cautious in Big Sur area. They had fires last summer which took months to contain and now with all the rains it can be dangerous. I used to live on the Monterey Peninsula, just moved, it's very pretty there. Enjoy your trip.
 


Fly in North, work your way South. Or vice versa. This can easily be done in two weeks. We did a two week national park tour starting in San Diego and going as far north as Crater Lake in Oregon and then back to San Diego in 14 days. All the places you picked are easily accessible with Bir Sur being the most "remote" (it's not really remote).
 
Just wanted to say to be cautious in Big Sur area. They had fires last summer which took months to contain and now with all the rains it can be dangerous. I used to live on the Monterey Peninsula, just moved, it's very pretty there. Enjoy your trip.
Thanks for the heads up, I will be sure to do some extra research into the area for weather/warnings/etc :)

Fly in North, work your way South. Or vice versa. This can easily be done in two weeks. We did a two week national park tour starting in San Diego and going as far north as Crater Lake in Oregon and then back to San Diego in 14 days. All the places you picked are easily accessible with Bir Sur being the most "remote" (it's not really remote).
It's easy enough to rent a car at one location and drop it off at another right? I've never done car rentals before except for work trips
 
It's easy enough to rent a car at one location and drop it off at another right? I've never done car rentals before except for work trips

As mentioned previously it is usually more expensive, but relatively simple to set up. It's usually pretty straightforward when you book from the rental car website. Given your travel plan, there's not a really good way around it.

You could fly into LA or SD and do Disneyland and San Diego, then return your car, fly to San Jose/Oakland/SFO and rent another car and do Big Sur, Monterey, SF, Napa, then fly out of there, but I think it will end up costing more due to the extra flight, and also wasting time from backtracking.
 
How important is Disneyland to your trip in terms of time? I know this is the DIS and most will recommend 4-5 days there, but if I only had one trip to CA, I would actually consider skipping it (blasphemy I know, lol) or maybe just going 1-2 days there. But for now I will assume you want to spend 3 or 4 days at Disneyland.

Fly in San Diego

San Diego: 2 days

Drive San Diego to Disneyland about 2 hours.

Disneyland +\- LA and Orange County: 5 days. I personally am not a big fan of the tourist sites in LA and wouldn't spend a lot of time there personally or skip it entirely, but that's just me.

Drive up Hwy 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) from Disneyland to Monterey: 1 days. I personally would consider taking driving up halfway and staying somewhere on the coast such as Morro Bay so that you can make plenty of stops along the coast, but you can do the drive in 1 day if you really want to. Last time I did it we actually took 3 days driving.

Big Sur/Monterey/Carmel: 2 days

Drive Monterey to SF ~2-3 hrs

San Francisco: 3 days

Drive SF to Napa:1-2 hours

Napa: 1 day. There are several Michelin star restaurants in the Napa area, particularly Yountville if that interests you, outside the wineries of course.

Fly out of SFO, Oakland, or Sacramento.

-----

Potential places to consider cutting time:
Cut down time at Disneyland
Skip all non-Disneyland sites in LA and Orange County
Skip San Diego or Napa

Potential places to add time:
Pacific Coast Highway drive (Morro Bay, San Simeon, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, etc )
Monterey and Big Sur

The above is a great plan! If it were me doing the trip, I'd END the trip with Disneyland. Fly into SFO or OAK (Oakland) and use an airport shuttle service to get to your SF hotel. Don't rent a car until you're ready to do the 1/2 day trip to Napa. Napa, in my opinion, is good for an afternoon. But I'm not a huge wine drinker. There are also probably 1-day tours (on a tour bus) that you could to do up to Napa if you wanted to skip the car rental for that day.

Big Sur/Monterey/Carmel - do just an overnight. For example, you can drive from SF to Monterey in ~ 2 hr, depending on weather and traffic. Leave your hotel around 10am, arrive at noon. Spend the afternoon in Carmel or Monterey. Then on the following morning, do Carmel or Monterey before hitting the road. Target to leave Monterey by 2pm.

Then drive 4 hr to Santa Barbara and stay overnight in SB.

Then drive ~4 hr down to San Diego and spend a couple of days in San Diego.

THEN drive 2 hr from SD to Anaheim. Spend 5-6 nights in Anaheim. Do the Hollywood/LA touristy stuff before DL. Or go to DL for 2 days and then do an LA/Hollywood day, followed by 2 more days at DL. On check out day, have breakfast at Goofy's Kitchen or the character breakfast at PPH before you go to the airport. Turn rental car in at airport.
 
We are going from Seattle to Disneyland via Oregon coast, redwoods, SF and LA in March/April.

I found dropping off our car when we get into SF and picking one up a couple of days later when we leave cut the rental price by 50% and I was not charged a 1 way fee. For the booking from SF to Anaheim I was not charged a one way fee either. This was with Hertz.
 
How important is Disneyland to your trip in terms of time? I know this is the DIS and most will recommend 4-5 days there, but if I only had one trip to CA, I would actually consider skipping it (blasphemy I know, lol) or maybe just going 1-2 days there. But for now I will assume you want to spend 3 or 4 days at Disneyland.

Fly in San Diego

San Diego: 2 days

Drive San Diego to Disneyland about 2 hours.

Disneyland +\- LA and Orange County: 5 days. I personally am not a big fan of the tourist sites in LA and wouldn't spend a lot of time there personally or skip it entirely, but that's just me.

Drive up Hwy 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) from Disneyland to Monterey: 1 days. I personally would consider taking driving up halfway and staying somewhere on the coast such as Morro Bay so that you can make plenty of stops along the coast, but you can do the drive in 1 day if you really want to. Last time I did it we actually took 3 days driving.

Big Sur/Monterey/Carmel: 2 days

Drive Monterey to SF ~2-3 hrs

San Francisco: 3 days

Drive SF to Napa:1-2 hours

Napa: 1 day. There are several Michelin star restaurants in the Napa area, particularly Yountville if that interests you, outside the wineries of course.

Fly out of SFO, Oakland, or Sacramento.

This is almost EXACTLY what we're doing in July, except the opposite:

Fly into SFO

Three full days in SF

One day in Monterey/Carmel

One day just meandering down the PCH

One day in Santa Barbara

Four days in L.A.(including one at USH)

Two days at DL

Two days in San Diego

Fly out of SD

The L.A. part is easy, because I lived out there for a while. The San Diego part is relatively easy because we're only there a couple of days, and we already know three major things we want to do there.

It's the SF/Monterey/PCH/Santa Barbara legs that we've not nailed down yet.
 
I was so torn on how to handle our 2 week triip to CA this summer. Two years ago we did Adventures By Disney SoCal and loved it so I knew I had to squeeze in DL again! But only on a 2 day ticket this time. We enjoy using toursbylocals and you can find a personalized day guide for a really reasonable price! We did that two summers ago in LA and it was a super experience. So this year

3 Days in San Diego - zoo with early entrance panda experience, personalized day guide to see San Diego
2 days at Hotel Del Corondo to simply enjoy the beach, etc
3 nights in Disneyland
4 nights in LA - again personal guide as my husband wants to go to a film set, lunch at Ivy, star stuff!!! Ivan the Magician Show....VIP Universal Studios and hoping for tv audience taping somewhere

I so wanted to add a leg to get to carmel for a few days but it just wasn't working out in the timeframe on this trip Just too much driving for me...
 
3 nights San Diego
3 nights Disneyland
2 nights LA
2 nights Pismo Beach
1 night Monterey (must go to Monterey Aquarium)
3 nights San Francisco
 
I know the original post was a few months ago but just wanted to comment for those who may search this topic in the future. A few years ago we did a CA coast visit - from SD to SF. 6 hotels in 11 nights. Very similar stops to what is listed above except we spent a night in Big Sur instead of Monterey. It was fun but it was too much driving/moving/packing/unpacking - and we are experienced travelers who are good at living out of a suitcase and packing light! The constant checking in and out made the trip much too hurried and not the least bit relaxing. If I were to do it again, I would maybe break it up into a max of 3 hotels - one south (4 nights), one central (5-6 nights) and one north (4-5 nights) and see what I could from those bases. I'd recommend SD, LA and SF or SD, Anaheim and SF.
 

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