From the towering forests of the Redwood Coast to the alpine passes of the Sierra Nevada, this guide to the best California road trips promises unforgettable drives across the Golden State.
The Best California Road Trips You Need to Know About
California doesn’t have one best road trip. It has several, and they’ll make you feel like you’re exploring completely different countries. The coast is one story. The Sierra Nevada is another. The redwood forests of the north are something else again, and the desert is a world of its own.
The best California road trip depends on what you’re after, how much time you have, and whether you’re the kind of person who needs to see the ocean every day or can survive without it.
Do You Need a Car? And What Kind?
Yes, you need a car. There’s no public transit network that meaningfully covers the PCH, Yosemite Valley, Death Valley, or the redwood state parks.
The only exception is San Francisco, where cable cars, Muni, and ferries make it easy to get around, and where parking is expensive, scarce, and rarely worth the effort.
For most travellers, a car rental is the simplest option: fly in, drive off. But if you’re based on the East Coast and staying for several weeks, shipping your own car can be simpler than hiring one.
Coast-to-coast transport saves several days of interstate driving before your California road trip begins. It’s also worth considering if you’re travelling with gear, planning a longer stay, or simply prefer driving a vehicle you know. To check out this option, get quotes for vehicle shipping before you make a decision.
Tip: If you rent a car at LAX or SFO, book ahead. In peak season, cars disappear quickly.
Road Trip 1: The Pacific Coast Highway
If there’s one stretch of road that earns the title of the ‘ultimate road trip’, it’s the Pacific Coast Highway.
Highway 1 runs roughly 460 miles of scenic coastline between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and for long stretches, the PCH is one of the most visually extraordinary drives in the world.
Before it opened in 1937, built largely by prisoners and Depression-era work crews blasting through the Santa Lucia Mountains, Big Sur was almost entirely cut off from the rest of the state, accessible only by boat or horseback. The PCH stitched it into California.
North or south doesn’t matter much. Heading south keeps the ocean on your right; heading north gives you wider pull-offs.
One thing worth checking before you set off is Caltrans road conditions. Highway 1 closes after landslides, particularly along Big Sur.
- Recommended reading: how to drive from LA to Santa Barbara
The Road Trip Itinerary: 7 to 10 Days
- Days 1 to 2: Los Angeles. Hollywood Sign, Griffith Park, Santa Monica Pier, Malibu.
- Day 3: Head north along the coastline. Santa Barbara, Stearns Wharf, Santa Ynez Valley.
- Day 4: San Luis Obispo, Morro Bay (stop for oysters), Hearst Castle at San Simeon.
- Days 5 to 6: Big Sur. Stay at least one night; don’t rush this stretch of Californian road.
- Day 7: Carmel, Pebble Beach 17-Mile Drive, Monterey. Clam chowder on the pier.
- Days 8 to 9: San Francisco. Return the car, explore by cable car and on foot.
Los Angeles
Most California road trips begin here, which means most of them begin in traffic.
Give yourself at least two days. Griffith Park is one of the largest urban parks in the United States, and while the Hollywood Sign is visible from several vantage points, it’s almost beside the point. The hiking trails with views over the city and the Griffith Observatory’s free stargazing nights are the real reasons to go.
The Santa Monica Pier marks the end of Route 66, and standing there offers one of those iconic California moments that somehow meets all your expectations.
Malibu, 25 miles north, is where the rich and famous retreat in plain sight. The Rindge family once owned all of it and spent decades fighting the state in court to keep the public off their land.
They lost, which is why you get to swim at Zuma Beach, a long strip of California coast between the Santa Monica Mountains and the Pacific, with enough surf breaks and seafood shacks to keep you occupied for days.
Santa Barbara
Another 75 miles north to Santa Barbara, and the pace changes. The Spanish colonial architecture along State Street looks centuries old. Most of it was built in the 1920s, after a catastrophic earthquake flattened the downtown in 1925, and the city decided to rebuild in a unified style.
You’ll find good wine from the Santa Ynez Valley just inland, a waterfront that earns its American Riviera label, and great food (if you’re willing to walk to find it).
A night in Santa Barbara before the coastline gets properly dramatic is time well spent.
Hearst Castle to Big Sur
San Luis Obispo makes a good lunch stop in central California, with a Thursday farmers’ market and Bubblegum Alley.
The stop along Highway 1 at San Simeon is Hearst Castle, which William Randolph Hearst called “the ranch,” spent 28 years building, and never quite finished. He died in 1951.
The Neptune Pool alone was filled and drained several times as he changed his mind. Orson Welles later drew on Hearst as inspiration for Citizen Kane.
After San Simeon, the landscape shifts completely. The Big Sur coastline runs for 90 miles, cliffs dropping straight to the Pacific. Bixby Creek Bridge appears around a corner without warning.
Don’t miss Pfeiffer Beach, which has purple-tinged sand coloured by manganese garnet washing down from the hills.
Carmel, Pebble Beach, and Monterey
Carmel is self-consciously charming, the way places that know they’re beautiful often are. The 17-Mile Drive through Pebble Beach earns its place: a scenic coastal loop past cypress trees, the Lone Cypress on its granite headland, and a vista from the Fanshell Beach overlook.
In Monterey, eat clam chowder on the pier and watch sea otters in the kelp beds offshore. The canneries Steinbeck wrote about were abandoned after the sardine collapse of the 1940s, driven by overfishing and shifting ocean conditions.
Kayaking in Monterey Bay makes for an easy half-day.
Road Trip 2: Northern California and the Redwood Coast
North of Monterey, the drama of the central coast gives way to something greener and older, and San Francisco, for all its energy, is really just the doorway into it.
The Road Trip Itinerary: 5 to 7 Days
- Days 1 to 2: San Francisco. Cable car, iconic Golden Gate Bridge, Marin Headlands.
- Day 3: Muir Woods. Then head north on Highway 101 into redwood country.
- Day 4: Humboldt Redwoods State Park. Avenue of the Giants.
- Day 5: Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, Fern Canyon.
- Days 6 to 7: Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. Then head south.
San Francisco and Muir Woods
San Francisco is best explored without a car. Return it or park it and spend two or three days on foot and in cable cars. Drive across the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, then head to the Marin Headlands and look back. It’s a view you won’t forget about any time soon.
Muir Woods National Monument, twelve miles north of the city, protects an old-growth coastal redwood forest. It was saved from being flooded as a reservoir when Congressman William Kent bought the land and donated it to the federal government, asking that it be named after John Muir. Trails here run beneath trees rising 250 feet, the light filtering green through the canopy.
Book parking well in advance. If you’d rather hike in, the Dipsea Trail from Mill Valley is a good alternative.
The Redwood Coast
Highway 101 north from San Francisco is one of the great routes in California, and one of the least discussed.
It goes through Humboldt Redwoods State Park, where the Avenue of the Giants runs beneath the tallest redwood trees in the world, through Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, and on to Redwoods National Park.
About six hours without stops, and you will want several. Prairie Creek’s Fern Canyon is a narrow gorge with 50-foot walls draped in five-finger fern.
Further along, Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park is one of the most intact old-growth redwood forests anywhere in the world.
Road Trip 3: The Sierra Nevada
Head east from the coast, and California changes entirely. The PCH is one kind of trip. This is another, more logistically demanding, more extreme in its landscapes, and worth every extra day you can give it. Three or four at a minimum.
The Road Trip Itinerary: 5 to 7 Days
- Days 1 to 2: Yosemite Valley. Tunnel View, Bridalveil Falls, hiking trails.
- Day 3: Tioga Pass (if open). High alpine terrain, Tuolumne Meadows.
- Day 4: Lake Tahoe along the western shore. Kayaking if the weather holds.
- Days 5 to 6: Sequoia National Park. General Sherman Tree, Giant Forest.
- Day 7: Head south on Interstate 5 or scenic Highway 99 back to Los Angeles.
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park is one of those rare places that delivers on its reputation. In 1903, John Muir camped here for three nights with President Theodore Roosevelt and convinced him, around the campfire, to protect it federally.
Yosemite Valley sits beneath granite walls rising 3,000 feet, with Half Dome at the far end, El Capitan on one side, and Bridalveil Falls on the other. The first view from Tunnel View, coming in from the west, will make you stop the car.
Book timed entry permits well in advance during peak season. Over four million people visit Yosemite National Park each year, and you will feel the weight of that number without a reservation.
Tioga Pass, open from late May through October, crosses the Sierra Nevada at 9,945 feet and connects Yosemite Valley to high alpine country that most day-trippers never reach.
Sequoia and Lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe and Yosemite make a natural pair on an extended itinerary. Tahoe sits a few hours northeast via US-395 when Tioga Pass is open, and Lake Tahoe along the western shore road is good for kayaking, the water an improbable shade of deep blue.
From Tahoe, the drive south toward Sequoia National Park carries you back along the spine of the Sierra Nevada.
Sequoia National Park contains the largest trees on Earth by volume, if you were looking for one more thing on this trip to make you feel small. The General Sherman Tree, named after the Civil War general, weighs an estimated 1,385 tons and has been growing for around 2,700 years.
Road Trip 4: The California Desert
The California desert road trips require separate planning. Go between October and April. In July, Death Valley NP averages 45 degrees Celsius ( the temperature reached 56.7 degrees here in 1913, a record that still stands) and Joshua Tree NP isn’t far behind.
But in the cooler months, this is some of the most arresting scenery in the country, and the light on the desert floor at sunrise and sunset is unlike anything on the coast or in the mountains.
The Road Trip Itinerary: 4 to 5 Days
- Day 1: Drive to Death Valley NP. Zabriskie Point at sunset.
- Day 2: Badwater Basin, Mosaic Canyon, Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes.
- Day 3: Head south to Joshua Tree NP. Hidden Valley, sunset at Cholla Cactus Garden.
- Day 4: Skull Rock, Keys View. Drive back to Los Angeles.
Death Valley National Park
Death Valley is the hottest and driest national park in the United States, and the lowest point in North America. The landscape feels exposed in every direction.
Start early. Zabriskie Point at sunrise shows the badlands at their most defined, the ridges catching light before the heat builds, while at Badwater Basin, 282 feet below sea level, the salt flats stretch outward in hard, geometric patterns.
Just outside the park boundary, Rhyolite, a short-lived mining town, offers a reminder that people once believed this place could sustain them.
Joshua Tree National Park
Joshua Tree sits where the Mojave and Sonoran deserts meet, and the vegetation shifts almost imperceptibly as you move through it. The park takes its name from the twisted Joshua trees scattered across the higher elevations.
Hidden Valley is the perfect place to start: enclosed, quiet, and ringed with rock formations that invite wandering. Skull Rock lies just off the main road and takes only a few minutes to reach.
Later in the day, the Cholla Cactus Garden changes character as the light drops and the spines catch the sun. From here, Los Angeles is about two and a half hours away, close enough to reach by evening.
Travel Tips for Visiting California
When to Go
Spring (March to May) and early autumn (September to October) are the most reliable windows for exploring California by car, with steady weather and fewer crowds.
Summer works well on the Pacific coast, but inland it’s brutal. Death Valley NP averages 45 degrees Celsius in July, and Joshua Tree NP isn’t far behind.
Winter closes Tioga Pass and brings snow to the Sierra Nevada, but California hotel rates drop, and the redwoods in low grey coastal light are worth seeing.
Book Ahead, and Get the Pass
Yosemite National Park requires timed entry reservations during peak season, and Muir Woods parking must be reserved in advance.
The ‘America The Beautiful’ annual pass, at $80, covers entry to every national park and monument on this itinerary and pays for itself after two or three stops.
Popular stops along the way fill months ahead in peak season, so book accommodation early.
On the Road and Places to Eat
Download offline maps before leaving each town. Mobile signal along Highway 1 and the broader scenic routes drops out without warning.
Petrol stations on eastern Sierra routes can be 40 miles apart, so fill up whenever you see one.
For places to eat, central California produces much of the country’s fresh produce, and roadside farm stands are always worth stopping at. Great food on these trips runs from clam chowder in Monterey to San Fran’s Ferry Building farmers’ market on Saturday mornings.
Interstate 5, while it lacks the romance of the PCH, is what you use when you need to cover ground fast.
What to Pack
Layer for the coast, where California sunshine comes with an ocean breeze that drops the temperature sharply after 4 pm. Leave room for a warm layer, sunscreen, and a camera with plenty of storage.
There’s lots of walking involved in doing this trip properly (on the Yosemite hiking trails, the coastal headlands, the canyon floors of Joshua Tree), so good shoes are non-negotiable.
Need more help? Here’s exactly what to pack for your next road trip.
Where to Start
The best California road trip is simply the one you take. Pick a direction – head south from San Francisco or head north from Los Angeles – decide whether the coastline or the Sierra Nevada comes first, and build from there.
The stops along the way have a habit of rearranging the itinerary on your behalf, and the rearrangements are almost always an improvement.
You’ll find great routes in every direction, national parks and state parks within a day’s drive of each other and scenery that shifts from Pacific Ocean coastline to alpine granite to desert floor within the same trip.
The distances are wide on paper but strangely intimate on the ground.
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