Road Trip Honeymoon!

Knottie85211890

My fiancé and I are getting married in Vegas! We are thinking about doing a road trip honeymoon leaving from Vegas and heading towards California. Any suggestions on where to stop and what to do? Also the price range for anyone who has done something like this.

SBmini

What time of year are you getting married?

jenna8984

I normally hate road trips and tell everyone not to do them. I have driven across the country twice and it sucks. But this is would be relatively short, Vegas to LA is like 3 hours so I don't even know if I'd call that a road trip. But I'd hit up Santa Monica Beach, Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, and San Diego. The drive would be a lot longer if you wanted to go up towards San Francisco.

amelisha

Last Christmas my fiance and I drove from Canada down to Vegas, then to LA, San Diego, and San Francisco before heading back north up the coast. It was a lot of fun and I think the best part of it was that we didn't overplan it.

We literally just booked a couple hotel nights in Vegas and other than that did it completely on the fly. And it was THE BEST TIME. We stopped wherever looked interesting, booked hotels in the morning for that night on our phones, and even brought camping equipment in case we felt like doing that (and we did camp in San Diego and in Sequoia National Park.) It was incredibly fun and inexpensive and you can make it as expensive or budget-friendly as you want. We ate a lot of cheap meals and camped, but we also spent a couple nights at very upscale hotels and went to Disneyland and drank fancy cocktails and all that. I'd do it again tomorrow, I don't think we've ever had such a good time on a trip.

To estimate a budget, we looked at the mileage we knew we had to cover (just using Google Maps to figure out the kilometres between our home and the cities we were planning to visit), multiplied that by 50%, and figured out how much it would cost us in gas using my average mpg. We then added $100/night for hotels (and obviously some nights were much cheaper but some were much more expensive), $100/day for food (again, it averaged out), and $150/day for entertainment (which we way exceeded some days and didn't touch on others but kept an eye on.)

Knottie85211890

We are getting married in March. Neither of us have ever been out that way but we love beautiful scenery!

Thanks for that info!

amelisha

If you want scenery, I recommend going Vegas-LA but then driving up the California coast past San Francisco and into the wine country and then the redwood forest. It was gorgeous.

Knottie85211890

thank you!!

SBmini

 think for the most quintessential California, you should head to the coast. It's only about a 5 hour drive to go from Vegas to LA. I would personally skip LA all together, however, unless you have some burning desire to see it. Then take Sunset to the Coast and start on Highway 1 there. Otherwise, drive to Santa Barbara. That will take you under 7 hours and would be a good first day of driving.

Santa Barbara (two nights) is sort of the start of wine country. It will be too cold to swim in the ocean, but the weather is mild, and cool. You can do a wine tour, walk along the beach, tour the mission, shop, etc. 

Next stop Monterey (two nights): take Highway 1 to Monterey. Stop in Big Sur. You should get a hotel in either Monterey, Pacific Grove of Carmel. Carmel is a very charming little town, but it is more expensive. Pacific Grove is also charming and small. Monterey is bigger and more touristy. Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove is a well guarded secret. Rooms are affordable and it includes breakfast. Ask for a historic room. There's also a charming B&B in Monterey called the Jaberwock Inn. 

Go to the aquarium, do 17 Mile drive, eat really good food. Also wine country, so you can do wine tours here. This would also be an excellent place to kayak or do a whale watching trip.

Next stop: San Francisco Baby! (three nights) Tons of options for where to stay here. I like the Union Square area, but seriously- you have your pick. You can do Alcatraz, Fisherman's Wharf, ride the trollys, Croit's Tower, Lombard Street. There's wonderful museums and food, and culture. You could spend a week or two here and still not put a dent. Good Chinese Food: Pearl in Chinatown. If you guys are into Beer, check out La Trappe. 

The finally, Napa. I'm sorry I can't make recommendations here. Obviously there is wine. From here, I would drive back to SF, return the car and fly home. SF is really the last good airport on the trip. After Napa it starts to get very remote. Don't get me wrong, it is stunning, but if you are going beyond Santa Rosa, you are committing to probably another week. You may even need to retrace your steps back to SF. Eureka is the only other city between SF and Oregon on the coast of any significance, and I doubt you can get any decent flights out of there. 

I hope this helps, let me know if you have any specific questions. 

LarraO2530

My FI and I are planning a route 66 tour for our honeymoon! Nice to hear some others going off the norm of clear waters and sand for 10 days!