The Swamp

Hello all,

I am looking for some help in organising a trip from San Francisco to San Diego (or vice versa) for a group of 3 - 4 Adults (with learning difficulties and/or trauma histories) and 2 staff in early October.

Ideally I would like us to drive along the coastal highway stopping in San Fran, Monterey/Carmel, LA and then San Diego for 6 nights and 7 days.

My issue seems to be getting accommodation for 6 people and requiring 5/6 bedrooms. I am would prefer to pay for 3 properties of a couple of nights each/or stay in 6 properties over the 6 nights (and would quite like to get a pool/walking distance to beach).

Vrbo is do-able, but the reviews are terrible and I cannot afford to have a fuck up on the bookings as the people travelling don't need that kind of issue while on holiday.

Thoughts, websites etc,.. would be much appreciated.

Hey, Tom. As you may remember, I live just a bit south of San Francisco. My wife is a great travel planner. I don’t know this hits your needs, but she suggests looking at county tourism websites for ideas on your trip. Air bnb sites, too. But, I know a lot of tourist-oriented destinations won’t do one night property rentals.
(Examples to check out: https://www.slocal.com/
https://www.seemonterey.com/ )

Ps: if you are free for a pint while you are in my area, let me know!

Thanks,

Obviously US pints are smaller, but would be more than happy to share a few...

I drove a good chunk of 101 in Oregon once and as an East coast US guy it was awesome and California is probably at least as great. Have fun man.

I think you would have to go with AirBnB/VRBO, as most hotels cannot guarantee connecting or adjoining rooms, which it sounds like you would want for this group. If you can, reach out to the "managers" of the houses you find prior to officially booking and mention the special circumstances of the party to try to ensure their stay will be as positive as possible.

It sounds like this is a casual trip on driving days, which would be good. The coastal routes are much slower than traveling I-5 in most cases and any accidents can cause significant delays, as they are often two-lane and not four or more.

Check out the high end yurts in Costa NOA (https://costanoa.com/). Different but nice and fun off the coastal highway.