Have I told you lately that I love traveling in the United States? From my first trip to New York in 2005 until today, when I’ve visited the US more than 10 times, only one thing has changed. Instead of big cities, I now prefer visiting national parks, which are a truly unique experience for nature lovers. In October 2023, we took a road trip from San Francisco to Las Vegas and once again, we weren’t disappointed. In this post, I’ll share our 14-day itinerary with some tips for alternative routes.
SHORT INTRODUCTION FOR THE US FIRST TIMERS
If you are not familiar with the details of traveling to the US, here are a few short tips to consider. First, you probably need a tourist visa – we needed to apply for ESTA online, which costs 21 $ and is valid for 2 years. Second, calculate your miles and see if it is worth flying into and departing from a different city. Distances are vast! Third, rent a car (I usually rent via Expedia, Booking or Rental cars). Finally, take your credit card and a half-empty suitcase. There are plenty of opportunities to buy stuff on the way, from groceries, medicines, clothes, to all kinds of stuff.
I also recommend buying America the Beautiful – national parks pass, which costs 80 $ and has room for 2 signatures (owners). It will quickly pay off, and you can re-sell it because it is valid for 1 year. Now, let’s move onto our itinerary.
SAN FRANCISCO
After a long international flight, we had just enough energy for an afternoon walk around the hotel. The Civic Center is on one hand a beautiful area with the city’s largest government and cultural institutions, including City Hall and other buildings in classical style. On the other hand and just a stone’s throw away, you can find hundreds of homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks, doing things you wish you hadn’t seen, right in front of you. We visited Frisco 10 years ago and were sad to see things have changed for the worse. We finished the day with a short hike to Twin Peaks – a scenic hill with nice views of the city.
If you have more than one day in San Francisco, I suggest you take a tourist bus that stops at the most popular spots, including Painted Ladies, Fisherman’s Wharf and Golden Gate Park. It is also worth visiting the Alcatraz prison and taking a guided tour with headphones.
POINT REYES SEASHORE
The next morning, we crossed the famous Golden Gate, with a plan to visit the coastline and parks on the northern side of San Francisco. There are well-maintained viewing areas and enough space for photography on both sides of the bridge. Despite the cloudy morning, we caught some rays of sunshine and drove further along the coast towards Muir beach.
The beautiful scenic hike to Pirates cove was a good leg-stretcher, but the time flew by so fast, we decided to leave for Sacramento right after lunch. If we had an extra day, we would have gone north to Point Reyes, which is known for its lighthouse and beautiful views. But since the weather was not very Instagrammable, we didn’t regret leaving the area too much. 😉
Shopping in Sacramento
Sunday was time for our first shopping at Simon Premium Outlets and we also found some good deals in Ross and Marshalls. In the late afternoon we headed to Lake Tahoe, which was our first “bucket list” destination. Based on experience, we limited our driving time to a maximum of 2 hours between destinations, hence we arrived in South Lake Tahoe well before dark and settled down with no rush.
3 days in Lake Tahoe
The surroundings of Lake Tahoe are so beautiful and calming that we extended our originally planned 2 nights to 3. Fortunately, it wasn’t crowded in October, so we had no problem getting a room at a decent price. South Lake Tahoe is otherwise a bustling vacation resort, full of bathers and hikers in the summer and turns into a prestigious ski resort in the winter.
On the first day, we drove to Emerald Lake, which resembles Slovenia’s lake Bled because of the small island in the middle of the bay. We also hiked to Cave Rock for some nice afternoon views of Lake Tahoe. On the second and luckily very sunny day, we climbed Mt. Tallac, the second highest mountain in the area. It was one of my prettiest hikes ever, as we were surrounded by lakes and beautiful autumn colors. On the third day, we went to Secret cove, a nudist bay with emerald and crystal-clear water. Despite the cold (the water was around 13°C), I took a swim between the boulders. Crazy experience!
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK
We set off right after lunch, moving to a hotel near El Portal, on the SW side of Yosemite Park. We stopped by Mono Lake and drove via the very scenic Tioga Pass, which took us almost 4 hours. This was our firs f*** up, and instead of spending the night in Lee Vining, we drove 2 more hours through entire Yosemite National Park towards El Portal. By the way, Tioga Pass is not always open, so check the situation online before planning your route.
Sadly, we missed some pretty hikes in the NE part of Yosemite, because we were too tired, and it was already quite late. And we couldn’t return the next day, as we had a very busy schedule on the other side of the park. If we did the same route again, we would definitely spend one night near the Tioga Pass entrance gate. Luckily, the next day the weather was again very cooperative, so we managed to tick off everything from our bucket list.
First, we hiked to Nevada Falls and reached the upper waterfall in less than 2 hours at a fairly fast pace. The rest of the day we enjoyed the views of the grand free climbing wall El Capitan and the famous Half Dome, which was closed due to the late season. The most beautiful views are actually from the “Tunnel view” and “Glacier view” parking lots. Yosemite National Park is vast, and I can easily imagine spending a week there. But you can also tick most of the sights in one day, if you are not much into hiking.
STOPOVER AND SHOPPING IN FRESNO
From El Portal, we headed towards Fresno, which is quite a big city, and spent almost half of the day drinking coffee and shopping. We arrived at the pre-booked farm stay cottage almost at dusk. The location was ideal, only about an hour away from the entrance to Kings Canyon National Park.
KINGS CANON AND SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK
These two parks are connected (you only pay the entrance fee once) and they are both known for giant sequoias. Kings Canyon in the north is smaller and therefore less visited. When we arrived at the parking lot to see the 2nd largest tree in the world, the General Grant tree, we were practically alone. The sight of beautiful giants was unfortunately disturbed by the smell of fire, which soon turned out to be a big sightseeing spoiler.
The road towards Sequoia Park was “smoky” and visibility was significantly reduced in certain sections. The warning signs announced controlled fires, which is needed to maintain the park’s grounds and fauna. Unfortunately, we had to skip one shorter hike and a few spots on the way, until we reached the Moro rock – a giant boulder, accessible via a rather steep but well-maintained path. Fortunately, the smoke did not reach the area and we were rewarded with a beautiful view, all the way to the Sierra Nevada mountains.
LONE PINE VIA WALKER PASS
Due to the fires, we decided to skip another night near Sequoia Park and headed towards Bakersfield, where we made a new plan. The map showed that we were close to the highest peak in the Sierra Nevada, and the scenic route seemed very promising. The decision was made to sleep in Lone Pine and take the early morning hike somewhere with a nice view of Mt. Whitney.
We drove over Walker pass and the views on the road were really nice. The landscape is a mixture of rocky desert, majestic mountain scenery and Joshua tree park, which is known for its funny looking trees. Just before we reached our motel, we took the Movie Road in Alabama Hills – a fairytale landscape with rocks that reminded me of Namibia. Many films were filmed here, including Gladiator and Django Unchained.
LONE PINE LAKE AND DEATH VALLEY
We are good hikers, but we just weren’t ready for the grand Mt. Whitney (4,421), nor did we have enough time for acclimatization. We hiked the scenic route to Lone Pine Lake, which lies at an altitude of over 3,000 m. It was a wonderful experience and if it hadn’t been so cold (it was also snowing for a while), we would have hiked at least one or two kilometers further. Next time, though! 😉
Since we had an extra day, we decided to take the longer route towards Las Vegas, via the Death Valley National Park. The landscape is not at all as boring as it sounds – on the contrary, it offers quite a few interesting tourist stopovers. But after a tiring hike and many driven miles we only stopped for a photo of the “100 feet below sea level” sign. We arrived in Las Vegas in the evening and spent two days there.
LAS VEGAS
We have been to the city of lights several times, and not to bother you with the details – check out things to do in Las Vegas in this link. You can also visit my Facebook album for more photos from our San Francisco to Las vegas road trip.
ADDITIONAL TIPS
If you have more time, you can drive to Los Angeles, pass by some nice national and state parks, or just head to the posh Malibu, Santa Monica, and Beverly Hills area. A very beautiful road trip extension is also the coastal drive along the scenic Highway 1. In this case, I would recommend starting in San Francisco, drive towards LA, head to Las Vegas and do the rest of our route the opposite way. You can always skip the Vegas part, if you are not into gambling and hotel hopping. 😉
This is it, I hope I encouraged you to start saving the money for an awesome trip from San Francisco to Las Vegas, or that you at least enjoyed reading my post. If the answer is yes, I would appreciate a follow on Instagram. 😉