Help with CA road trip

[fiddles]

H & I are taking a road trip to San Diego to visit family for Christmas. We plan on leaving around the 29th and heading back up north to Seattle. We need to be back in Seattle by 1/3. I'm looking at places we can stay long the way. Fun little towns to stop in at. At first I was thinking of Napa or Sonoma but I don't know how many wineries would be open during the middle of the week.

Any suggestions?

Right now I have us leaving SD on 12/29 and going to DisneyLand, leaving on the 30th.

[mrs.jacinthe]

Chico is a great town and only a little bit out of the way if you take I-5.

If you want to dawdle around and see some scenery, I'd probably do 1 or 101. Stop in Carmel, etc. 1 will take you a LOT longer than 101, but the scenery's pretty spectacular.

[katieh]

Carmel and Monterey are both really nice. Depending on your dates, a lot will be open in Napa (definitely for NYE, not as much but still a few places on New Year's Day) so I wouldn't automatically cross that off your list.

[dearprudence]

1) Wineries are usually open during the week. They're not a weekend only business.

2) I've done the drive from San Diego up to Mendocino, so I can take you that far with places to stop. Since you've already planned to go from San Diego to Disney, I'll start there:
* Anaheim/Disney
* Santa Barbara
* Solvang
* San Luis Obispo
* Big Sur/Carmel/Monterey
* San Francisco
* Napa/Sonoma
* Mendocino

[Deleted]

Chico? No.

[mrs.jacinthe]

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree, miso. Downtown Chico is a delightful place to wander around and they have some great specialty shops. It's not a fancy place and definitely gives off that hippie vibe a bit, but it's clean, safe, and a good place to spend a little time.

Of all the places on I-5 to stop, it would definitely be my choice over, say, Stockton or Modesto.

(I sound like a travel brochure, but I swear I don't actually have a dog in the fight - we don't live there.)

[justthetip]

I have no beef with Chico, but I don't think it's cool enough to warrant a detour. I'd avoid I-5 until Oregon, if possible time-wise. Basically, you could have a leisurely drive up PCH to SF, or hustle a bit & hit Napa too. I like Pru's itinerary, personally. I love the central coast along PCH, so I'd do Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Big Sur, Monterrey/Carmel, SF...then it depends on how much time you have left.
We drove from SoCal -> Santa Cruz -> Seattle this summer. We didn't have time for Napa (Calistoga!), so we cut over to the 5 from SF and drove to Ashland, Portland, & Seattle. Crater Lake is worth a stop, but conditions might be crazy in January. There was tons of snow in July!

[emilyinchile]

Nov 21, 2012 15:04:35 GMT -5 mrs.jacinthe said:

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree, miso. Downtown Chico is a delightful place to wander around and they have some great specialty shops. It's not a fancy place and definitely gives off that hippie vibe a bit, but it's clean, safe, and a good place to spend a little time.

Of all the places on I-5 to stop, it would definitely be my choice over, say, Stockton or Modesto.

(I sound like a travel brochure, but I swear I don't actually have a dog in the fight - we don't live there.)

That is not exactly high praise

[RoxMonster]

Wineries in Napa/Sonoma are open during the week. We did a Napa tour this summer on a Tues. and a lot of the popular wineries were packed!

I also suggest Carmel. We absolutely loved it there; it was the highlight of our northern Cali trip this summer.

Another cute town by SF is Sausalito. A lot of cute shops, restaurants, etc.

[vegas]

Agree with Carmel/Big Sur area. I also love Napa and Sonoma. If I remember correctly, most wineries we hit closed on Monday but were open the rest of the week. One more rec--check out Coronado Island while your in the San Diego area.

[dandielion]

Nov 21, 2012 15:04:35 GMT -5 mrs.jacinthe said:

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree, miso. Downtown Chico is a delightful place to wander around and they have some great specialty shops. It's not a fancy place and definitely gives off that hippie vibe a bit, but it's clean, safe, and a good place to spend a little time.

Of all the places on I-5 to stop, it would definitely be my choice over, say, Stockton or Modesto.

(I sound like a travel brochure, but I swear I don't actually have a dog in the fight - we don't live there.)

I'm just a lurker but I swear I never thought I'd see Chico come up on this board.
But PP is correct in that Chico is a cute little town. And in that time frame the students will still be gone so parking would be easy to find. There is also quite a bit to do and see in the town, and it's beautiful this time of year with the fall colors on the trees.