My first vacation of
2017 saw me go back to my favourite place in the world, sunny California! This
time I had gone over for my cousin’s graduation party and ended up turning it
into an 18-day vacation. I only got back last week and not going to lie I am still recovering
as I went ‘ham’ (as they say in So Cal), but I thought I would make this my
guide on how to make the most of California in just under 3 weeks – planned out
by my American cousin and believe she knows the best places to go, eat and stay
to ensure you live that Cali lifestyle, which I certainly did!
PCH Road trip
Dodgers Game
I arrived to LA on the
Friday; Saturday was my cousin’s graduation party (which I DJ’d at…got to tick
that of the bucket list!), Sunday I went to see the Dodgers trash the Miami
Marlins and then Monday myself, my cousin and her American friend hit the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco.
Yep, no trip to
California is complete without a road trip and I can ensure you this 6-day road
trip was exactly what you see in the movies. Hollywood does not lie people!! If
you are going to California soon I recommend you do the below, to make the most
of your trip.
Day 1.
Santa Barbara was our
first stop, but rather than staying the night we made a slight detour to have
lunch at Los Agaves on Miplas
Street. If you like Mexican food
then this is the perfect place - it’s cheap and good quality! The restaurant
has a great ambiance too. You can of course stay over in Santa Barbara for a
night but as I had visited it in November we skipped this and carried on
driving to Santa Cruz, where we spent two nights.
We got to Santa Cruz
for around 4pm, staying in a lovely air bnb, which was only a few minutes walk
from the town centre. For dinner
we walked to the Sesame
Korean grill, which was great!
The best was to follow as we walked to The Penny Ice Creamery for a post
dinner sweet. Honestly I would quite happily stop over in Santa Cruz just to
try their ice cream. It’s very popular, so be prepared to queue for about 20
minutes, but believe me when I say it is wait the worth! The eclectic and
seasonal flavours of organic, made-from-scratch ice cream will probably be the
best ice cream you taste! Also, if like me you are celiac, they offer gluten
free ice cream cones, which are to die for, literally the best ice cream cone I
have ever had…promise!!
Day 2
Point Lobos views
We left our air bnb by
8am to drive to Point Lobos for an
early morning 7-mile hike. I recommend leaving early so you can make the most
of the hiking trail before it becomes busy! It’s such a beautiful hike and the
views are breathtaking. North
California has some beautiful nature reserves and this is certainly one of
them, making a change from the desert and beach landscape of SoCal.
If you watched Big
Little Lies then you will be familiar with the Bixby Creek bridge scene, that
appears in the credits. Fellow fans, note the bridge is only like a 20 minute
drive from Point Lobos, so I highly recommend you drive over it. The views are
breathtaking! We totally drove over the bridge and played ‘Cold Little Heart' (just put the Big Little Lies Spotify playlist while you drive around the
area).
The cafe on Big Little Lies!
Views from the Monterey Bay Aquarium
Fisherman's Wharf
We drove over to
Monterey, keeping with the Big Little Lies theme, stopping over at Café Lumiere for a lovely and quick
lunch. Following this we then made
our way over to the Fisherman’s Wharf. Sadly though the coffee shop, which
Jane, Madeline and Celeste meet at several times in the show, is actually not
open for the public – it’s just a set. Everywhere else next to it however is.
It’s quite a cute area to walk around especially if you want to see Sea Lions.
For dinner we made our
way back to Santa Cruz (we had planned to go Big Sur but a mudslid prevented
this) and ate at a lovely Afghani restaurant called Laili. Again the food was amazing - if
there is something I did on this trip it was eat and I mean eat well. Best
thing is everywhere catered for my celiac and vegetarian diet! I recommend you
try their sweet dishes in the restaurant, as they are veggie and gluten free
and totally worth the calories!
Day 3
Views of Napa Valley from Castello di Amorosa
It was time to say bye
to Santa Cruz and drive over to Napa!! Yep, California’s wine country is as
beautiful and amazing as you would expect! We left early so we could have brunch
at Grace’s Table- I ate the best iron
skillet cornbread, with lavender honey butter, I have ever had! Highly
recommend you visit this place. Salivating thinking about it…!
We then went to Oxbow
Public market, which is a cute market where you can taste everything from
amazing olive oil to brandy! Kara’s Cupcakes is certainly somewhere you need to
make a quick stop at, especially if you have a sweet tooth! Their gluten free
cupcakes certainly hit the mark!
Castello di Amorosa was next up -
basically the castle you would have seen if you follow the Kardashian’s, they
go there. If you only visit one place in Napa then I highly recommend this
place. It sits at the top of Napa Valley thus allowing for breathtaking views
of the valley. Also, wine tasting in a castle, erm come on what else do you
want!? It’s $25 for basic entry, which includes wine tasting and if you don’t
drink they give you non-alcoholic wine. You defo have to
try their chocolate too – so good! A bit of history - the owner of the castle
basically woke up one day and decided he wanted to build an authentic castle so
that is exactly what he did. He also owns Sattui
Winery, which is great for cheese tasting, so we visited this next. I
recommend you do too!
To be honest there are
so many wineries in this area that you can visit but since we only had a day in
Napa we just visited the main two.
We stayed the night at
the Hilton Garden, Napa Hotel,
which is located a short drive from the main wineries. For those wine lovers
out there, the hotel offers complimentary wine tasting and a free bottle of
wine at night so you can continue your tasting, if you like! The hotel is also
located a 5 minute drive from Bistro
Don Giovanni, which is exactly where we went for dinner! If you love
Italian food this is certainly the place to go as their pasta is made from
scratch, to order. They also offer gluten free pasta options so I was sorted.
If I had to choose a
favourite day from my road trip I would certainly say it was today – Napa was
magical, for more reasons than one ;) !
Day 4
Artwork in Berkeley
Waking up early to say
bye to Napa, we drove to Walnut Creek so we could make a 9.30 Soul Cycle class. Yep, you read
correctly! No trip to California is complete without taking at least one Soul
Cycle class. It was such a good workout and was of course filled with positive
vibes!! Highly recommend it.
Walnut Creek is
actually a cute town, and the Soul Cycle is located in the Broadway Plaza,
which is a cute shopping area. It also has a True Food Kitchen, not far from Soul
Cycle, making for the perfect place to stop for lunch after a fab work out. True
Food Kitchen is a health driven, seasonal restaurant merging nutrient rich
ingredients with a flavour forward menu! They have a number of gluten free,
organic vegetarian and vegan offerings so once again I had a fab meal!
We then drove to
Berkeley, which is something else! It’s such a hippie town and you will know it
for it’s famous university. We stopped there for a few hours, as my cousin and
friend had some work to do. I got my nails done and had a little walk around
the town whilst they caught up on work in Philz
Coffee. If you like coffee you
need to go here, as their coffee is apparently the best! I don’t drink coffee
but my cousin and friend swear by the place.
Another reason to go
Berkeley is to visit the
Cheese Board aka the best pizza you will have in California!! They have a
different pizza a day and they are always vegetarian, made with local organic
ingredients. They also offer a gluten free pizza and it was the best gluten
free pizza I have ever had!! This place is super popular so again be prepared
to queue for a while, or get there before 6pm to miss the queues. Following
dinner we ended the night at Fieldwork
Brewery before driving to Oakland.
As for places to stay,
I can’t recommend anywhere as we stayed with my cousin’s friend who lives in
Oakland. Soz!
Day 5
The Golden Gate Bridge
Views of Alcatraz from Fisherman's Wharf
We had to be back in
LA for Saturday evening for another family grad party so we could only have a
day in San Fran. Thus we used all day Friday to see San Fran in a day! It was
totally doable, well seeing the main attractions – so the Fisherman’s Wharf,
Little Italy, Chinatown, Golden Gate Bridge, Pink Ladies and finally Union
Square. Yep we pretty much did all that in that order in one day! Also fitted
some cheeky shopping in at Union Square, which has the best Guess store – I got
such a cool denim jacket (see picture in day 6).
Myself and my fellow road trip ladies at Pink Ladies
Union Square
For lunch I recommend Souvla, which is a great Greek restaurant
offering a number of lovely salads and wraps. Their salad is so good. It is
also near Smitten Ice Cream,
which you have to visit! You basically choose out of their exciting flavours
and they make it right in front of you.
The evening saw us go
to a number of cool local hangouts, including the Local Edition, which is inspired by the
newspaper business of the 1950’s and 60’s, it sits below Market Street and I
highly recommend you end your night there as it allows you to experience what
San Fran was like in an era gone!
Day 6
Today was the day we
left San Fran and drove straight back to Los Angeles via I-5. This is the quick
route - it’s still scenic (as everything in Cali is) but it means you can get
from San Fran to LA in like 6 hours. We made one stop at In n Out, which of course is a given when in Cali!! We stopped at
the In N Out in Kettleman City,
which was the best one I have ever been too! If you want to do a stop on a fast drive to LA from San Fran
then make this your only stop! Kettleman City has old cowboy vibes to it and it
made for a good photo shoot for my new Guess jacket … as below :P
And the rest…
Taken in 7 Magic Mountains on the way to Vegas - highly recommend you make the stop.
For the rest of my
trip I spent the time in Los Angeles and the OC area (where my family live). Oh
yeah and I ended the trip in Las Vegas, but what happens in Vegas stays in
Vegas so…..
I’ve blogged about LA
and the OC before so rather than go into full details a few recommendations I
have are as below:
Food
For the best taco’s
you will have, outside of Mexico, I recommend you visit Ola Mexican Kitchen for Taco
Tuesday. Located in Huntington Beach it is the place you go if you want
authentic Mexican food with beautiful beach views. It certainly was amazing!
Make sure you turn up for their happy hour – note to all the Brits, in LA happy
hour’s cover food, as well as drinks. Might as well drop into The Bungalow afterwards, as it is in this area!
Side Car Doughnuts – If you love
doughnuts and are gluten free then this is certainly the place to check
out. Their gluten free doughnuts
taste better than gluten ones!!!! If you are not celiac then they have a number
of seasonal and inventive flavoured doughnuts!
Shopping
It was memorial day,
whilst I was in Cali so I totally made the most of Memorial day sales going to
the Ontario
Mills in California on Memorial Day Monday. Even if you don’t go during a
national holiday I recommend you check the Ontario Mills out as it is basically
an outlet mall so you get a ton of designer brands at half the price. I shopped
till I dropped!
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South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa is
also another good place to check out for shopping! I’ve been there on prior
trips and it has a great selection of stores from designer to high street!
So that pretty much sums up my trip to California. Feel free to have a look at my other Californian based posts for further hints and tips.
Have you done the PCH road trip? If so leave your comments below!
So that pretty much sums up my trip to California. Feel free to have a look at my other Californian based posts for further hints and tips.
Have you done the PCH road trip? If so leave your comments below!
XxX
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