California RV road trip

If your dream is an RV road trip along the highways of California, through deserts and mountains and along stunning coastal roads, then you may find this interesting.

Many thanks to Briony Jacobs, who has told us all about her fantastic RV road trip, with her family. We always love to hear all about our customers trips. Briony and Neil took their three kids on this adventure – they booked 2 nights at the Doubletree Hilton, in Marina Del Rey on arrival, then a 6 berth RV for 9 days visiting lots of fantastic RV parks around California, then transferring to the Hyatt Orange County hotel, close to Disneyland for three nights before flying home.

DAY 1 – Los Angeles

Travelled with Air New Zealand to Los Angeles, good flight, we even managed a little sleep! Arriving in LA was a hectic experience! Found our transfer bus and got into the hotel. Straight to bed after a long flight as we were all shattered.

DAY 2 – Marina Del Ray

Looked round Marina Del Ray, didn’t really find much but a pleasant area to be in – strolled  down to Venice beach in the afternoon. This was absolutely stunning, just like the beaches that you see on the films! It was really windy as well so lovely to sunbathe, but, Daisy got terribly sunburnt and Scarlett got sunstroke! So look out for this and make sure plenty of water is drunk and much more suntan lotion! Venice Beach walkway is fascinating, very tacky and salesey but you have to see it, brilliant fun.

DAY 3 – Hollywood

Went to go and collect our RV for our RV road trip, we were so excited! Went to the supermarket, packed it full of food and went off to find our first campsite – ‘Balboa RV park’ was central to Hollywood and the man that runs it cannot of been any friendlier or helpful, a real character! Fab site.

DAY 4 – Hollywood

Off to Hollywood for the day! We hired a car at the recommendation of the campsite people, but I found this to be a mistake as LA, especially Hollywood is full of one way systems, and it’s not very clearly signposted until you have almost gone past the point you wanted to turn. We visited the Hollywood museum which was good and also went to see Abraham Lincolns grave! This was by accident as we were actually looking for the Hollywood sign, and ended up in an extremely affluent gravesite! Random thing to do on a family holiday but actually very interesting. Didn’t see any famous houses or people – probably due to the fact that we got lost and then all argued due to frustration of being stuck in a car all day!

DAY 5 – Bass Lake

Moving on to Bass Lake!  Beautiful camp ground ‘Cedar Bluff’ up by Yosemite – went in the lake for a swim and lovely walks. Able to have a big campfire here and camping in the woods was just wonderful, no light pollution so the starts were stunning!

DAY 6 – Yosemite

Went to see the Sequoia trees in Mariposa Grove, Yosemite. The trees were absolutely awesome! Huge and very beautiful. We went on a little open tour bus to see right up into the top of the woods, the driver lady was very informative and interesting. I would recommend this if you are short on time as we were. We found a lovely fresh water spring that Neil and Scarlett swam in – very refreshing and a lovely find!! I would’ve liked to have seen a lot more of Yosemite and gone higher up and maybe have seen a bear or two, but unfortunately time didn’t allow… I would consider going back to this area and perhaps team it with a ski holiday to Lake Tahoe – one to look into.

DAY 7 – Carmel

Moved onto Monterey, and fell in love with this area. Beautiful beaches, the campsite was so friendly with stunning views over the hills, and it was very well equipped for children with a small park and lovely clean pool with toys and woggles etc… Stayed at Saddle Mountain Ranch, Carmel – a lovely lovely place to stay with a family.

DAY 8 – Monterey Bay

Went whale watching in the Monterey bay, this was amazing! Huge killer whales so close to you, and in abundance! The locals describe the area as a salad bowl, so the bay just drops down in to this large salad bowl, creating a haven for sealife of all sorts. This trip is a must. We went with a lovely small company that the campsite recommended and I would though roughly recommend too. I think they were called Chris’s whale tours? The second in command sat with Scarlett for most of the trip chatting and wrapping her up in towels to keep her warm. I think she fell in love with him! such a fab trip!

DAY 9 – Pacific Highway

This was where our planning fell down as we had planned to stay in Saddle Mountain for 4 nights, we then realised that we couldn’t drive from here to LA to drop off the RV in 4 hours as originally planned! So, we cut short our stay in Carmel and decided to go to Pismo Sands for the night. This was a total adventure! We travelled down the Pacific Highway heading towards Pismo Bay to stay for the night. The scenery on the Pacific Highway is just stunning!!

We found an abandoned beach ram packed with Elephant seals, they are the funniest things that we had seen on the entire trip! We couldn’t find a campsite and so at midnight we ended up staying on the beach at Pismo – they have a night patrol system going on so we were talking with the night guards, and we came across another family in an RV… after the night patrol man told us that the best way to cross the beach was by driving close to the waters edge, deflate your tyres and just keep going, don’t stop! We decided to go it together with this other family. We ran a ditch a couple of times and each had to dig each other out of the sands, but after a 20 minute drive across the sands, lit by moonlight we pulled in and sparked up a fire and popped a few beers J The other family turned out to be from Worthing J When we awoke the next morning it was the funniest sight! There must have been about 1000 RV’s all parked up, it resembled a small town! The dune buggies were driving from about 7am and it was crazy! We set off shortly afterwards to make our way to Disney. This was by far one of the most memorable days of the trip!

DAY 10 – Hollywood

Took the RV back and into the lap of luxury in our lovely hotel with fluffy white towels, polished surfaces, food served by waiters, swimming pools, hot tubs, cappuccino, and just about every luxury one would care to mention. We loved the RV but it is nice to get waited on and sleep in a proper bed.

DAY 11 – Disney Land

Disney land!!!! Wow, what a hot day to choose to go to Disney! It was like an endurance test! However, we did take advice and went early in the morning and managed to complete 2 lands before the crowds arrived and the sun really heated up at 11am. Disney was lovely, exactly what you imagine it should be . Not so much for the older girls to entertain themselves with, its definitely focused on the younger kids and parents. Having said that, we all had a fantastic day and I don’t think I have ever been so tired at the end of day! We could barely function once back in the hotel!

DAY 12 – LA

Another day of pure luxury, eating, drinking, swimming, chatting, more eating and more drinking. Perfect last day of such a perfect trip.

DAY 13 – Home

Home bound!!! Sad to be leaving but absolutely shattered and the girls missing all their friends, so all ready to go home.

Thanks so much Paul at Travel Action!!! Another superbly organised holiday!!!! Where next????!!!!

To book this RV road trip, or any other fly-drive holidays in USA, contact one of our travel experts – 0844 811 8489 / [email protected]