Hi. Looking to plan a road trip down the Pacific Coast Highway for late December with 2 of my guy friends. Because of COVID, I was thinking of renting an RV and doing a 1 week trip from Seattle to San Diego. Anyone have any trip recommendations. More importantly, has anyone ever rented a 1 way RV camper and can offer some advice on how to go about this? Thanks!
I can't help you north of SF, just between SF and SD. Keep in mind that driving just from one end of CA to the other is
LONG (ie, almost 1000 miles and over 20 hours of driving. With that in mind you need to decide:
- What are the most interesting things you'd like to see along the coast
- What places/sights are you ok with skipping
- Where you can camp overnight in an RV (there are lots of places, but you need to plan them out)
- If there are any parts of the coast you'd like to skip
- If you have interest in seeing SF and LA along the way
- Where you're going to get food (either prepared for reheating in your RV or raw ingredients to cook)
- Whether you want to travel exclusively on CA-1 (PCH) or are ok with taking regular freeways (most likely I-5 or US-101) to get around parts you're not interested in
- What you want to stop for (ie, just sights for pictures, hikes, excursions) and how long those will take
I'd say the average time to drive PCH LA to SF with a few stops for big sights (Morro Bay, Hearst Castle, Big Sur, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Monterrey, Windsor Mansion, etc) is 2-3 days at a minimum. If you wanted to stop longer at each place or stop at more places, you'll need more time.
Since you want to drive from SEA to SAN, which includes a lot more than just the 20 hours of CA coastal driving, you may be cutting off more than you can chew trying to cram it into a week.
At the same time, consider the weather: the Pac NW can be rainy and snowy in late Dec, NoCal will definitely be rainy, and SoCal could go either way (sunny or rainy, but probably sunny). Some activities may not be nearly as doable in the rain since most of them are outside. Like how much fun would it be to go to the fantastic beaches on the OR coast in the pouring rain?