West Coast Travel Forum

My mother (aka my best friend) and I are going on a road trip this summer as a way to say goodbye before I head off to college. Our trip will begin in Seattle, and we plan to spend a few (2-3) weeks traveling down the West Coast in a convertible. Although there are a few places I'd like to visit, I was wondering about the places that most tourists don't go. Though we plan to be really flexible with our trip, we figured it would be good to have some ideas of places to visit - cities, towns, restaurants, hotels, anything. Thank you!

We went on a Central California Coast road trip two years ago. We visited SF, Capitola, Monterey, Carmel, and went as far south as Cambria.

It was a wonderful trip. Capitola was a very nice cute little coastal town. I recommend the Inn at Depot Hill (Kyoto room).

If we had to pick just one restaurant it would be the Pacific's Edge at the Highland's Inn in the Carmel Highlands. Fantastic food, service, view and unfortunately you pay the price but IT IS WORTH IT.

One other thing, I don't know how far south you intend to go but I can tell you it will be cold on the coast. We had a convertible too and with only a few exceptions the top stayed up.

Safe driving!

If you make it down as far as Orange County, you have to stop and visit the Newport Beach area. It's one of the finest areas OC has to offer for sights, shopping, and food. If you ever watch that TV show "The OC", this is the area they portray as OC. If you consider making it down this far and want to take a look around, let me know and i'll make some suggestions on where to go.

Well, that's a tall order... others have named some places in California, so I'll focus on Washington & Oregon.

You might start by taking a ferry from Seattle over to the Kitsap/Olympic Peninsula, where you can visit Olympic National Park and the hot springs at Sol Duc, as well as the wonderful Victorian town of Port Townsend (the semi-authentic Nordic village of Poulsbo is a worthwhile stopover too). The Hoh and lesser-known Queets Rain Forests are worth seeing too. If you can afford it, stay at the New-Deal era Lake Quinault Lodge.

Then you could cut back west along Hwy. 12 to visit Mt. Rainier (absolutely spectacular) and Mt. St. Helens (fascinating, and a must-see).

From here, you could head to Portland and spend a couple of days there; it's one of the most pleasant, liveable cities in North America. Make sure you take a day trip out to the Columbia Gorge to see the spectacular waterfalls and the amazing scenic views (drive to the top of Larch Mtn., then back to Portland along the riverside highway). Or you could continue east to Hood River to see the windsurfers, then south around Mt. Hood and back to the city.

While in Portland, don't miss Powell's City of Books, or the park at Council Crest. Or the Saturday/Sunday Market under the Burnside Bridge.

South of Portland is the wine country, which has some excellent wineries and B&Bs (it's on the same latitude as Bordeaux and some say the wines are just as good). In the Coast Range just west of Corvallis, there's another fun scenic road you should check out - Mary's Peak.

Continuing west, you'll soon come to the amazing Oregon Coast, which is absolutely spectacular for almost its entire length. I particularly like the town of Yachats, but there are plenty of other nice places to stop and enjoy the scenery too, such as Bandon and Brookings, which is just north of the CA border and thus brings me to the end of my travelogue. :)

Okay here we go:

Humboldt area: Avenue of the Giants
Wine Country: Sonoma, Napa, Calistoga, St. Helena
San Fran of course
Hwy 1 down through Carmel & Big Sur
Hearst Castle in San Simeon
Solvang
Santa Barbara
and if you really want to get creative, see the California Missions along the way.

:) Leah