The ultimate California road trip: a Golden State adventure from San Francisco to San Diego
One of the best holidays of my life was a road trip across the United States when I was 19. I loved the movement and freedom, and the intoxicating vast spaces of America. But there was nothing luxurious about it. We travelled in a Ford Tempo and subsisted largely on mysterious meat products bought from gas stations. The car began to smell of unwashed socks and beef jerky. At night, we camped or stayed at cheap motels that had the unsettling atmosphere of potential crime scenes.
On the 30th anniversary of that trip, I felt the road calling again, like Ulysses in the Tennyson poem whispering to his old adventurers that, “some work of noble note, may yet be done”. I also saw it as a chance for my wife and I to have a brief furlough from the long joint sentence of parenthood.
But over the years, we have grown a little soft. The crime-scene motels were out. My wife wanted spas and sunshine. And I had my eye on a car that would scratch the itch of my incipient midlife crisis. The 500-mile stretch of road between San Francisco and San Diego seemed like the perfect combination of beautiful landscapes and unapologetic luxury. The result was a trip of such exhilarating brilliance that I wonder why we waited so long to do it.
We touched down in San Francisco on a warm September evening and initialled the papers for a Mercedes convertible in the airport’s drop off lane. There’s always something stressful about the first moments behind the wheel of a rental car. I was so jet-lagged I couldn’t figure out how to adjust the wing mirrors. I took so long fiddling with them that a policeman pulled up alongside me to check that I was OK. “Don’t have a big crash or anything,” he said, in a way that only increased my paranoia. The man who rented us the car had lowered the sunroof and warned us to not raise it while we were moving, but in the hot dry wind my wife’s naturally curly hair turned into an enormous cheerleader’s pompom that seemed to block the view in all directions.
Still, we made it over the Golden Gate Bridge to Cavallo Point, a hotel in an old naval base where guests stay in the wooden houses that were once the officers’ quarters, laid out in a graceful curve around the old parade ground. The warm yellow light and the soothing smell of redwood were an immediate tonic. I did my due diligence on the car while my wife defrizzed her hair in the hotel spa to the very Californian soundtrack of dolphin song. Then we ate bavette steak and drank Napa cabernet on a terrace as the sun set over the Golden Gate Bridge.
The next morning we headed south, passing through the mindboggling dynamism of Palo Alto and SiliconValley to the pretty agricultural country off Highway 1. My wife put on a playlist that was heavy on Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills and Nash. The smell of ripe strawberries blew into the car from the fields that lined the road. Globe artichokes grew on triffid-like bushes at the roadside.
I had been looking forward to driving the convertible along Route 1, the Pacific Coast Highway. On the stretch south of Monterey it’s a corniche, twisting just above the crashing Pacific waves. This landscape of winding roads and picturesque bridges has been imprinted on the consciousness of UK television viewers by the recent HBO series Big Little Liars. However, thanks to a landslide and a fallen bridge, it was impassable. [It has since reopened to the north, making the drive from Monterey to Big Sur accessible once again.]
So at Monterey, we left our car in the parking lot of Del Monte Aviation and switched transport to a Bell 206 four-seater helicopter. This was my wife’s first ever helicopter ride. She was enchanted by its sudden vertical ascent: “It goes up like a dragonfly!”
Flying by helicopter is the best way to appreciate the beauty of Big Sur, the stretch of protected wilderness that runs along the coast where the Santa Lucia Mountains abut the Pacific Ocean. On the coastal side you look over the mountains, golden sand, aquamarine water and fans of foam around the rocks, while on the other side the sea extends right out to the glittering horizon.
After 20 minutes or so, the helicopter set us down at Post Ranch Inn, a lodge on a cliff edge overlooking the ocean. The inn achieves the feat of being both rustic and magnificent. White-tailed deer roam around the grounds. The rooms have quirky pieces of modern art, no televisions, and picture windows with uninterrupted views of the Pacific. There’s a yoga yurt, and hiking trails, and a swimming pool set into a tawny mountainside. But above all, you come here for space and serenity and the privilege of watching the sun descend into the sea as you steep in a hot tub on a private balcony.
At this point, I would have been happy to shelve the road trip and spend the rest of the week at the lodge. I’ve rarely been so reluctant to leave a place. Still, it was some consolation to take the helicopter the next morning back over the mountains and to be reunited with the car.
After a lunch detour to Carmel-by-the-Sea, known for its artistic residents, former mayor Clint Eastwood, and a bizarre by-law that forbids wearing high-heeled shoes (due to the cobbled streets), we headed south towards Santa Barbara. With Highway 1 impassable, I took county road G16, 50 miles of two-lane highway winding through vineyards, horse and cattle ranches, and live oaks covered with Spanish moss. It was well worth the detour and brought us out on to 101 south, which runs through the Salinas Valley.
Just beyond Las Cruces we were reunited wit h the ocean. The landscape was drier and progressively dotted with more palm trees as we headed south. We had settled into the rhythm of the driving, enjoying the transitions of the scenery. I remembered that’s what so pleasurable about a US road trip: it’s somehow both stimulating and relaxing. You’re soothingly immersed in a changing landscape to a soundtrack of your own choosing. We told stories and silly jokes and hardly mentioned the children, at home in the UK being cared for by their saintly, Telegraph-reading grandmother. The only luxury we lacked was time. Given more days, I’d have happily made a side-trip through the vineyards of Santa Barbara, where Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church run amok in the 2004 film Sideways.
But in deference to my wife’s need for spa time, we sped through the mother-of-pearl sunset to the Four Seasons in Santa Barbara. This is a grand and, by Californian standards, venerable hotel, built in 1927 as an architectural homage to the region’s Spanish heritage. It’s set around a series of lush courtyards and decorated with heavy painted timbers and azulejo tiles. It also offers a private beach and vast spa and health club.
The next day, the route southwards skirted the ocean at beautiful Crystal Cove and then took us through the suburbs of Los Angeles. On the city’s crowded freeways, the sea was no more than a rumour.
We popped into Orange County that afternoon. At the Pelican Hill Resort, we drove under what looked like an aqueduct into an Italianate village set on a slope. Places like this are visible reminders that if California were a country, it would have the world’ s sixth-largest economy. It had manicured lawns leading down to the sea, vast marble corridors, tapestries and Brobdingnagian bathrooms. As the sun set, backlit fog rolled in over the golf links and surrounded the glittering gazebo that is used for outdoor wedding ceremonies.
A half-hour drive from Pelican Hill is Newport Beach, an enclave that’s favoured by super-rich boat owners. The Serengeti, a $23m luxury yacht that once belonged to the talk-show host Johnny Carson, was moored at the Balboa Bay Club. Its new owner, Jim Glidewell, took me on a tour. Jim, a genial fellow who’s made his fortune from dentistry, explained that the Serengeti combines two of his enthusiasms: superyachts and celebrity memorabilia. He also has a private jet once owned by Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric. The Serengeti exemplifies luxury travel. For $120,000 a week, it’s available for private charter . Its crew of seven can take 12 guests on bespoke trips where they can enjoy the services of a private chef while watching spouting whales from a hottub on the deck.
Sadly, we just didn’t have the time – and settled instead for a day trip on one of Jim’s other boats, the Parvina, a 63ft Baia Azzurra express cruiser. “It’s a rocket ship,”he warned me. It chugged out of the bay at a sedate speed but, once at sea, its captain opened up its twin engines until the coast was whizzing by in an exhilarating blur and a huge spout of water churned up behind us. It was like being in a Duran Duran video on fast forward.
The last stretch between Dana Point and San Diego was our valediction to the road trip. Neither of us was ready to go home. What lingered in the memory was not just the luxury, but something more precious,a sense that we’d shared a brief return to the carefreeness of our younger days. We spent our final night in a suburb of San Diego, at The Lodge at Torrey Pines, a golfing nirvana built in the Arts-and-Crafts style. I surrendered the keys to the Benz with a heavy heart. There was time for one last helicopter ride, a sweep over San Diego, its beaches, and the sapphire swimming pools that dot the landscape. Down below, we could see Interstate 5 running south to the Mexican border, calling both of us on with the promise of more adventures. Hopefully, we’ll return–in less than 30 years’ time.
California road trip essentials
Getting around
Luxury Line Auto Rental has a range of luxury and sports cars, and will deliver and pick up the car in person. From $79 (£60) per day.
Corporate Helicopters in San Diego offers private charters and tours. From $324 (£245) for two people on a 30-minute tour.
Specialized Aviation in Monterey offers charters and coastal tours. From $700 (£530) per flight hour for a charter, or from $135 (£100) per person for a 20-minute tour.
Coast Charters has a range of superyachts and luxury cruisers complete with expert crew for hire. From $2,500 (£1,900) for a luxury harbour cruise. Overnight customised charters, price on application.
Staying there
Cavallo Point in Sausalito. Doubles from $327 (£246).
Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur. Doubles from $875 (£660).
Four Seasons Resort The Biltmore Santa Barbara. Doubles from $495 (£375).
The Resort at Pelican Hill, Newport Coast. Doubles from $325 (£245).
The Lodge at Torrey Pines, La Jolla. Doubles from $359 (£270).
Eating there
Wine Cask at 813 Anacapa Street, Santa Barbara. Set right in the Spanish-inflected heart of Santa Barbara, the Wine Cask has a sumptuous wine list, knowledgeable and enthusiastic service, and fine food.
George’s at the Cove at 1250 Prospect Street, La Jolla. This restaurant and cocktail lounge, above an upscale neighbourhood of San Diego, offers astonishing views of the Pacific and serves zingy, healthy dishes with a dash of Mexican inspiration.
Getting there
British Airways has two direct services to San Francisco a day, with return fares from £500.
More information:visitcalifornia.co.uk; visittheusa.co.uk
