As nervous as we were to hire a rental car in America it was honestly the best decision we made! We would of never seen what we had saw or places we drove to without it. Over the 2 weeks starting in San Francisco, we drove to Monterey, Carmel, San Simeon, Solvang, Ventura, Bakersfield, Yosemite National Park, Mammoth Lakes, Death Valley, Las Vegas, San Diego and ending in Los Angeles. We travelled throughout the US in October/November and found the weather spot on for us as it wasnt too cold and the Autumn scenery was stunning!
We drove approx 200-300kms each day, even though this sounds long there were many stops along the way and was never bored. Monterey & Carmel was our first stop for the night where we enjoyed an amazing pizza oven dinner at Vesuvio restaurant and stayed at the Vendange Carmel Inn and Suites. I was mostly looking forward to the Monterey Aquarium as I had read it was one of the best in the world and yes it was pretty cool to visit. After leaving Monterey we begun our roadie along the stunning Big Sur! Unfortunately the Bixby Creek Bridge had a nice big fog cloud hovering (the most photographed bridge in Cali). There were many photos stops along the way as it was just so stunning, including McWay Falls. We found the coastline very similar to ours back home (Adelaide, South Australia).
On our second night we stayed in San Simeon which had some friendly neighbours – Elephant Seals which have taken over a small section of the beach. Although they arent the prettiest looking seals they were quite hilarious to watch (photo below). On our third day we made our way to Ventura via Solvang, now Solvang was something completely different to come across as it was a Danish style village with cottages and windmills. We stopped for a pastry lunch and explored the many bakeries and nik-nak shops.
As nice and quiet the town of Ventura was, the main reason we stopped here was to wake up early for Six Flags theme park, as when I was 12 my mum took us on a family holiday and didnt think to check if it was a public holiday only to rock up and find that it was closed, now 10 years later i was back!
We stayed overnight in Bakersfield before entering Yosemite park! I was so so excited to see wildlife, especially a bear, I know not many people would say that but we were safe in the car right? It was amazing to drive through the orange and red trees , stopping at the General Sherman (only the largest sequoia tree in the world) (photo below). Stayed overnight at the Yosemite Cedar Lodge which also had a restaurant which was handy as the lodge was remote. After staying in so many busy cities and towns for all those months it was honestly so refreshing to stay here, waking up to noises of wildlife. Even had a friendly raccoon neighbour, which I stalked the entire time as it was the first one I had ever seen in the wild! Driving through Curry village up to Glacier point was where the snow started to appear. From Glacier point is the view of the famous half dome (this might be some of your Mac screen savers!). Now Mammoth Lakes was our next stop, during the winter this is a popular ski area but during Autumn it felt like something out of the movies, wooden homes and lodges, we needed more than 1 night.
our wandering world 