Lonely Planet Coastal California

This book was really helpful. Without it, we would have missed out on a lot of cool things that aren't advertised. Definitely the best resource on our San Diego to Seattle roadtrip.

We used this guide on a recent trip to California. It is a good solid guide that helped us with hotel selection as well as helping us navigate. All the major sites and landmarks are noted. Maps of highways and downtown area were helpful. Recommendations for hotels and restuarants were good. We explored Laguna Beach and walked the paths along the cliffs and shoreline. The parks are well kept and are immediately across from the Laguna business disricts. When in Los Angeles we visited the Petersen Car Collection in downtown Los Angeles. This collection includes historic cars but also a vast collection of modified cars for drag racing. We also visited a second car museum, the Nethercutt Collection, which was established by the owner of the Mary Kay Cosmetics fortune. These two car museums were not included in the Lonely Planet book but they are exceptional collections for car enthusiasts. We spent the night on the ocean in Santa Monica and took a long evening walk down Venice Beach, certainly an interesting stroll. The next day we went into the Santa Monica Mountains. There are literally dozens of National Park Service areas spread across the Santa Monica Mountains. I strongly suggest going to the State Park District Headquarters and obtaining maps and advice on the numerous hiking opportunties in the mountains above Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean. We selected the Rancho Sierra Vista and Satwiwa Trail, both of which were excellent hikes. We stayed at the El Prado Hotel in Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara is upscale with expensive shops and restaurants throughout the downtown area. Lonely Planet recommended we get a hiking map, which we did, and they also recommended the Hot Springs Loop. A fellow at the hiking store told us to ignore this and take the Cold Springs Trails instead. We enjoyed this hike with its canyons, overviews, and waterfalls. Throughout the mountains above Santa Barbara are mixtures of mansions and farm houses. Several blocks from downtown Santa Barbara is the El Presidio de Santa Barbara, which is undergoing reconstruction and shows the life of a Spanish fortress in colonial California. Outside of town is the impressive and beautiful Santa Barbara Mission and gardens. San Luis Obispo turned out to be delightful with a massive impressive downtown mission and more moderate hotels and restaurants and shops than Santa Barbara. At the advice of Lonely Planet we spent the night at Petit Soleil, a wonderful bed and breakfast where each room is decorated in some theme from the South of France, the food is fantastic and the staff were exceptional, even helping us plan our hikes around the area. We selected the hike to Bishop's Peak. This is highly recommended. The hike circles a volcanic mountain, one of 9 in the area, and offers exceptional views in all directions. We then went to Hearst Castle. Lonely Planet is very diplomatic in their description of this site. The home and the guest houses are exceptional but seem to be monum

Lonely Planet are always the source I go to when looking to research a new vacation spot. Their books are informative and helpful and they are compact enough to take with you if nessesary. The featured highlights in the book are places like Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, Hearst Castle, Point Arena Lighthouse, Griffith Park and Queen Mary - so they have the main points covered. They show you various detours you can make if you are travelling by car so you can see other places that may normally not be seen by you. They go into the usual information that they normally do such as History and Culture, and then it's broken up into sections like North Coast, San Fran and the Bay Area, Central Coast, LA Area, San Diego Area. I find that by the time they talk about restaurants and hotels and tourist spots in each town, there is pretty much nothing uncovered. For this reason, I highly recommend this book. It gives you plenty of places to think about when making your travel plans.