California Trip ideas please

stphnstevey · 31 May 2011 at 8:53PM

Agree, great trip reports and really help others like myself

misa.blue · 2 June 2011 at 10:57AM

Our next destination was Santa Barbara. Left Laguna around lunch time, driving through Newport Beach, very big and long Huntington Beach.

Stopped for lunch at Ruby’s diner in Long Beach. Must say that the burger was the greasiest one I ever had, not great and prices higher than my favorite Jack in the Box..But hey, we done it, ticked Ruby’s diner of the list.
After lunch we carried on through LA and then turned of towards Malibu. As far as we could see from the Highway 1, there wasn’t much to see in Malibu, stopped by the pier, had little walk there and carried on. Drove by lovely vineyards in Oxnard area, followed Highway 1 by the coastline to Santa Barbara.
By the time we checked in the hotel Sandman Inn on State street it was gone 6 PM, the drive took longer than we predicted..There were plenty on fast food places around the hotel, we drove to shopping mall close by and went to Chinese restaurant there. Did I mention that we had some of the most amazing Chinese meals in USA? I was eating the Orange chicken every day, mostly in Panda Express for lunch ($5.50 for bowl of chow main and portion of orange chicken, very tasty bargain, definitely look out for Panda Express ).:T
Next morning we checked out and drove downtown to look around. The residential areas and houses there are so beautiful, I was driving around slowly, gazing at lovely houses and gardens.
Santa Barbara seafront is really beautiful with lovely beach, I would happily spend couple days lazing about in there, the town centre is lovely with the shops on State Street. There is free parking for first 75 minutes in all town car parks. Also there is little bus that runs from downtown to sea front for 25cents every 15 minutes(it is also easy walking distance).
We really loved Santa Barbara, my husband thought it was the nicest place we saw in California.
If you go there in the summer time, you might want to make some time and allow yourself at least one whole day to soak up the amazing laid back atmosphere of Santa Barbara.:)

misa.blue · 16 June 2011 at 2:13PM

Our next stop was Pismo Beach, where we stayed in Holiday Inn Express, £43 with lovely breakfast, hotel also had nice pool, what a bargain! However Pismo beach itself is very small town, not much there. Had small walk by the beach and then headed to outlet stores, got great bargain in Tommy Hilfiger shop (cheaper than outlet shop in Vegas!). Had dinner in our favorite Jack in the Box, bought snacks in WalMart (Reece’s Chocolate Peanut Butter cups! yummy), beer and fresh cakes in other supermarket and went back to the hotel for early night. Eating piles of cakes in the bed and watching Man versus Food on TV.:cheesy:
Next morning on Thursday we headed to Carmel, unfortunately, due to landslides on the coast, part of Highway 1 was still shut for repairs. We drove as far as Seal Beach, which was amazing to see and then went back to join 101.

In the afternoon we finally arrived at Carmel..Wow! It is the most beautiful and charming place I have ever seen in my life!!! I have completely fallen in love with Carmel. :heartsmil
Felt like stepping into the fairytale.

The houses in town all looked like they belonged to hobbits, you half expected some good witch or fairy to come out of the door..Loved it!

We stayed in famous Mission Ranch which belongs to Clint Eastwood. We really like Clint and my husband was secretly hopping that Clint will be there to say hi

The place was so beautiful, all ranch grounds were lovely, everything kept tidy, flowers everywhere…So charming..

For dinner we stayed at the ranch restaurant, had to wait 1.5 hrs for a table, but didn’t mind. Restaurant was very busy, lively with live music (piano and singer). Highly recommended, it was more expensive than our usual dinners, but we decided to treat ourselves.
In the morning we went for breakfast to the Tennis club within ranch grounds, the breakfast was amazing, fresh fruit, melons, grapes, Danish selection, all very tasty.. The members of Tennis club were eating there too, getting ready for morning training, everybody very friendly, asking us if we stayed up to watch the Royal wedding..It felt quite posh, I mean that in very nice way. Was very nice to feel like we belonged with those rich people, at least for one morning :oAfter rich breakfast and little walk around ranch grounds we reluctantly packed our cases back and left the most charming place in the world behind..Heading towards new adventures in San Francisco!

jackieblack · 16 June 2011 at 3:03PM

Excellent surfing at Pismo Beach, we loved it.
Thought Carmel was a bit 'fake' TBH, but it'd be boring if we all liked the same places, wouldn't it?

misa.blue · 16 June 2011 at 3:37PM

jackieblack wrote: »

Excellent surfing at Pismo Beach, we loved it.
Thought Carmel was a bit 'fake' TBH, but it'd be boring if we all liked the same places, wouldn't it?

Indeed we all like different stuff;)
You are right, Pismo is a surfing place, but we are lazy bums and don't do sports, so we just bought cakes to stuff our faces :rotfl:

jackieblack · 16 June 2011 at 5:26PM

misa.blue wrote: »

Indeed we all like different stuff;)
You are right, Pismo is a surfing place, but we are lazy bums and don't do sports, so we just bought cakes to stuff our faces :rotfl:

:drool: Ahhhhh........cakes......everyone loves cake.....

:drool: Krispy Kreme donuts.... :drool:

LillythePink · 16 June 2011 at 6:29PM

There have been a few California trip reports recently and all I can say is............

Bring on July as we will be there!!!!!

:):):)

It is just so interesting to read what people have put and their experiences, hints and tips

It sounds like you had a lot of fun......when are you going back?? ha ha

red_pad · 16 June 2011 at 7:38PM

I'll be interested to hear your views on the Baldwin Hotel in SF. Always cheap on Hotels.com and gets good reviews. What's the location like?

misa.blue · 16 June 2011 at 8:59PM

red_pad wrote: »

I'll be interested to hear your views on the Baldwin Hotel in SF. Always cheap on Hotels.com and gets good reviews. What's the location like?

SF is my next report to write,however I can tell you right away, that Baldwin Hotel on Grant Avenue is excellent hotel! We booked it after reading good reviews on the Tripadvisor and I can honestly tell you that we were thanking god everyday in San Fran, that we stayed in Baldwin. The location could not be any better(IMO), it is right by the gate to Chinatown, so you are close to loads of restaurants (also on Broadway there was cake shop which we visited every day,huge cakes for $2.50:T)
Also you are less than 5 min walk from Union Square!And 5 min to Market street, BART..
The hotel is very clean, our double bedroom was on 4th floor facing the Grant Avenue. It was very good size, lovely clean bathroom.
We were travelling on budget and Baldwin surprised us, it was nicer than some 3 star hotels we stayed in..
Only one minus point is that Wi-Fi is $9 per day, but there is Starbucks next door, which we used couple of times to upload photos on Facebook, we didn't really need internet on hols:)
Also there was always free coffee downstairs in lobby. The hotel did not provide breakfast, which is normal in SF, we learnt..
So to summon up, Baldwin is great, comfy, clean hotel in excellent location and we were very happy to stay there.:j

Ohhh guys, I'm so jealous of all of you heading to California for your holiday, I want to go baaaaack!!!:)

California Trip ideas please

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