California Coast Fly Drive

We travelled with Air New Zealand and many of the group were upgraded to sky couch seats. This is three seats which are made up into a bed so one or two people can purchase and share this. You get pillows and a duvet and you can put your feet up which makes all the difference to a long flight. This is a fraction of the cost of a business class ticket and well worth doing.

As we were doing a self-drive, we rented cars at the airport, but it is worth mentioning that the car rental desks are off-airport and this can take 40 minutes or more to get to the car depots as you are waiting for the shuttle bus and getting through the busy airport traffic.

We drove to the Hollywood Loews Hotel for a one night stay, which is literally next door to the Chinese Theatre. The location is incredible, right on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, you couldn’t be closer. From our room, you could see the famous Hollywood sign. The hotel was clean, contemporary, the rooms were spacious and had one of the most comfortable beds I have slept in!

In this area you can do excursions like Hollywood walking tours, celebrity houses tours, Universal Studios and plenty more. Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills is only a 25 minute drive from the hotel and you can park for free in Beverly Hills for a couple of hours so definitely worth a visit.

We then travelled to Santa Barbara, which is a couple of hours by road from LA, so a good place to pit-stop if you are travelling the California coastline. I would recommend only travelling a couple of hours at a time if you are doing the coastal route, there are lots of lanes and lots of traffic and you don't want to spend too much time driving. Tip: Travel from San Francisco down as then you will have the coast on your side of the road.

We stayed at the Harbour View Inn and my room was an Ocean View Room, these rooms are spacious, traditionally decorated and have beach and ocean views (across the road from the beach with uninterrupted views).

I loved this hotel. It was small, friendly, very comfortable beds and ideally located right next to the Santa Barbara Pier with the town set behind it within walking distance. The town had a Mexican type feel to it. As we visited on Thanksgiving, unfortunately the shops were closed but something I learned is that there are 30 wine tasting venues in the town so you have plenty to choose from!

I loved Santa Barbara, there is not too much to do apart from cycle rides along the promenade and shopping but that is why I liked it, it has a lovely relaxed feel to it and is very calming. An ideal place to stop off along the coast for a couple of nights.

Our next stop was Santa Monica driving down the Pacific Coast Highway, again a couple of hour’s drive, en route we stopped off at Paradise Cove in Malibu, which is where the celebs hang out. Santa Monica is only 20 minutes from Hollywood and with the new Metro connecting the two, it is any easy journey to make.

We stayed at the Le Meridien Delfina which is further back from the beach and more in the shopping district. If you wanted to be on the beach front, the Lowes Hotel would be a great place to stay. The Le Meridien had large bedrooms, all modern amenities and again comfortable beds, I know I keep saying this but all the hotels were amazing in this department!

Now Santa Monica is the exact opposite of Santa Barbara, it is much busier, larger, much more to see and do. Santa Monica Beach runs into Venice Beach with its famous outside gym on the beach (a highlight for me). There is a cycle/walk/run/rollerblading path that runs the length of the beach, we had a guided cycle tour to learn more about the area which was a great way to spend an hour or two. Santa Monica has the famous pier with the Ferris wheel and also marks the end of Route 66.

We were lucky enough to get a table at the Hotel Erwin to watch the sunset over the beach. If you can get a table, you can go up to the roof top, have a drink and just admire the view.

Along the beach there are lots of tourist shops and stalls selling all sorts of wares so you can go and have a stroll along and watch the street artists perform and take a look at the murals on the walls.

From Santa Monica we drove to Palm Springs, this took about 2.5 hours. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency in Indian Wells, a large resort with its own golf course and spa facilities. This is really where you come to relax for a few nights before travelling on again. Palm Springs has its own airport, plenty of designer shopping at the outlets and it is very peaceful with lots of space and quite manicured so all the palm trees and scenery look perfect.

We went for a visit at the Living Desert which is a conservation park for animals and you can get up close to the giraffes from their feeding platform and observe the cheetah run amongst other things. Well worth a visit if you have a spare few hours.

We took the cable car ride up into the mountains. The cable car floor rotates so you can get great views without having to fight for a spot, on the day we went up, the visibility was zero unfortunately but it was amazing to see it snowing quite heavily once at the top. There is a big restaurant at the top so you have plenty of shelter if you didn’t want to venture outside. During the summer you can do mountain walks and go and spot the wildlife that lives on the top.

The weather in late November was glorious, we were in shorts and t-shirts, until we got to Palm Springs where it was colder and we just hit a bad couple of days apparently.

California has 325 days of sunshine a year so there really isn’t a bad time to visit. So what are you waiting for?