Drive From L.A To San Francisco

After our time in Las Vegas we flew back to L.A and said goodbye to Andre who was heading back to New Zealand. We continued our trip by picking up a rental car, staying one night in L.A and then hitting the road to drive up the coast of California to San Francisco on the 101 Highway. It was a long but beautiful drive with so much to see.

If I was to do the trip again I would have done the drive over a few days and spent the night at places like Santa Barbara, Santa Maria or Santa Cruz to be able to really enjoy the smaller cites that you drive through along the way. The whole trip took us around 8 to 9  hours which included stopping along the way.

Along the way we stopped at Malibu, Santa Barbara and Pismo Beach. Also we stopped at Neptune’s Net Diner which is where the original Fast and Furious was filmed! It looks just like it does in the movie!

First up was Malibu, we stopped there to have brunch and to have a quick look around. It was a little bit overcast when we arrived, but I can imagine it being gorgeous there on a sunny day.

A little further up the coast we got to Neptune’s Net Diner

This is the view from Neptune’s Net Diner out to the ocean.

Next stop was at Santa Barbara, by now it had turned into a beautiful day and the sun was shining. I would have loved to have spent more time here, it seemed so relaxing and you could see palm trees for miles!

While we were at the Santa Barbara Pier we stopped to get a banana split sunday. It was so delicious, there are sooo many different flavors of ice cream in America (as you can imagine). This one was so good, we got pink and blue bubble gum ice cream!

This is our trusty little rental car 🙂

While at Santa Barbara a guy was walking his Newfoundland dog down the street. When I was a kid our family dog was a Newfoundland and she was black and as big as this one. As soon as I saw the dog I just had to take a photo of it. I ♥ big dogs 🙂

As the sun was about to set we stopped at Pismo beach. It was very romantic 🙂

Just before we got to San Francisco we stopped for dinner at In-N-Out Burger, which is only in California. It’s great tasting takeout, leaves Mc Donalds for dead! They only have 3 different burgers and they make their fries on site with fresh potatoes. They also make a Lettuce Burger, which was great for Ben because he is gluten free so he can’t eat any bread.

The drive from L.A to San Francisco is really enjoyable and well worth it, but if you are thinking about doing it I would really recommend taking your time and staying the night at a few places along the way.