Planning a California Coast road trip? Here’s our 10-day itinerary and 2,200-mile trip report for planning your own road trip adventure!

The last day of our California Coast Babymoon road trip began in San Diego and ended 200 miles and 4,000 feet in elevation on the summit of the notorious Grapevine, covering 95% of the mileage after sunset. It would have been a […]

Ah. San Diego. Good to be back. It’s been about 12 years since my last visit and to my eyes the city has changed very little — which is a very good thing. Why mess with perfection, right? Of course […]

Mission San Juan Capistrano was founded twice, about a year apart from one another. Yet, it was a significant year that saw a collection of 13 British colonies form an independent federation […]

After a fun and relaxing overnight visit with family in Santa Monica, we continued on to our most southern destination of the trip — San Diego.

Santa Barbara to Santa Monica, the heart of what many call America’s Riviera coast. And it’s not difficult to see why.

Easily, one of the coolest stops on our road trip, the Mission of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary … or La Purisima for short […]

Following a relaxing evening strolling around Pismo Beach and listening to the waves crashing outside our room, we awoke to a brilliant sunrise and a very lazy beach town […]

It was a short drive from Mission La Purisima in Lompoc to Santa Barbara, but we still managed to get in about an hour before sunset. After leaving La Purisima, we headed into Lompoc and […]

By the time the Hearst Castle shuttle got back to the Visitor’s Center parking lot, it was a little after 3pm. Wanting to catch the sunset at Pismo Beach, our stop for the night, we decided to bypass the famed Elephant seals of San Simeon and head south on Highway 1. Browse the interactive map … Read more

We left Pacific Grove on a Sunday morning, got onto CA-1 south and settled in for the long and winding road down the coast to Pismo Beach. Only about 120 miles distance as the crow flies, in reality, this is an […]

Beautiful and evocative Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, or Mission Carmel for short, stands as a testament to the ambitious and harrowing early days of European settlement in Alta (Upper) California. Neglected for decades, yet largely restored to its original state, Mission Carmel was […]

First stop on our California Babymoon Road Trip: Monterey. Well, actually a quick fuel stop in Marina, just in time to miss the sunset. The car made it 490 miles on a single tank of gas before the gas light went on. While […]