Our Cali Loop
After spending eight days driving 1,600 miles around the beautiful Golden State of California, I think we’ve fallen in love! Five National Parks, one that can only be accessed by boat, and everything in between! We experienced wine country, waterfalls, giant sequoias, fresh fruit stands, beaches, bridges, and so much more!
If you haven’t been to California, you’ll want to after reading this and I’ve got a perfect itinerary to help you see it all. Check it out in my store here!
This was our first loop road trip that we would have to fly into a destination and rent a car to accomplish. I was a little nervous at first since we normally spend the extra day or two driving but flying in helped us have the ability to explore so much more! We chose to fly into San Diego Airport (SAN) versus San Francisco solely based on the price but this loop could easily be done flying into SFO. For the car, we decided to use the app Turo instead of Enterprise or an airport rental which I would recommend to anyone. It was very easy to use plus you knew exactly what car you were going to have for your travels.
As we always do, the minute we landed in San Diego we hit the ground running. Our eight days were packed full and we were so excited to see the National Parks we’d had on our list for the past years!
Below is a brief breakdown of our loop through Cali:
Day One: SAN to Joshua Tree National Park
Day Two: JTNP to Sequoia National Park
Day Three: Explore Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park
Day Four: S&KCNP to Mariposa, CA near Yosemite National Park
Day Five: Explore Yosemite National Park
Day Six: Mariposa, CA to Sonoma, CA
Day Seven: Sonoma County, CA to Morro Bay, CA
Day Eight: Morro Bay, CA to SAN
I feel like we squeeze in way more into our weeks than the average Joe. If we had more PTO, we would have definitely stretched this over 10 days. However, I like how we see so much in one trip because if we like a place, we make plans to revisit and if we don’t then we only are there for a short amount of time.
Here’s a list of all the beautiful National Parks we got to see!
Joshua Tree National Park
Sequoia National Park
Kings Canyon National Park
Yosemite National Park
Channel Islands National Park
If we had the extra time, we would have loved to also visit Redwood National Park, Death Valley National Park, and Pinnacles National Park. Outside of seeing the parks, we got to explore some really amazing places along the way. This is my biggest reason for doing these road trips, we get to see all the nooks and crannies!
Here’s a list of some of the places we stopped to explore!
Palm Springs, CA
Tons of fresh fruit stands along the highway
Award winning-wineries in Sonoma County
San Francisco
Big Sur, CA + Bixby Bridge
Las Angeles, CA
Malibu, CA
I truly loved every second of our California loop. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many different landscapes in a short amount of time. On day one we were exploring the desert, next we were hiking up to waterfalls, then sipping on wine in vineyards, and finally riding a boat out to an island while watching dolphins. It was an amazing loop through a beautiful state. I’ll definitely be back Cali!
I hope that this post has helped inspire you to see a few of these National Parks, visit wine country, or plan a trip to get outta town! I’ve got all of my road trip itineraries posted in my store. Each one is 14-pages full of direct links to our exact road trip. Where we stayed, ate, and explored is all there for you.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out! Thanks for reading about my travels!
