Welcome to part 1 of the West Coast Road Trip Planning segment of the blog.
In total our trip is 24 days so this will be a 3 part series each looking at 8 days of our trip.
As with our NYC trip, things may go a little differently, we missed going over to the Statue of Liberty for example due to the weather, these things happen, if you’re planning a trip, don’t stress if you miss something, its 100% normal.
We fly out on the 12th October to Seattle, arriving in the city about midday, hopefully we can sleep on the plane and we can stay awake during the day, minimising the jet-lag that way we can maximise day 1 and 2 to explore as much of Seattle as possible in our 36 hours in the city.
On the morning of the 14th we take our first steps on our long trip south when we head to Mount Beljica, this offers some stunning views of Mt Rainier and according to the internet it is a fairly easy trail for hiking beginners, one website even says that its a great introduction to hiking for Kids! Perfect!
From here we will probably head to Randle as its a fairly easy stop on route to Mt St Helens, possible hike at Lava Canyon all depends on how tired we are from hiking Mt Beljica.
After a potential stop at Mt St Helens we will continue south to Portland (side note, NBA, please schedule a Portland Trailblazers game for the 15th November, thanks!)
Following Portland I am currently considering driving north to Cannon Beach even though our planned stop is in Newport which is south of Portland, this is mainly because Cannon Beach looks awesome and then we can drive the coast road past places like Otter Rock, etc. If you have been to Cannon Beach let me know in the comments if its worth the extra mileage.
Next stop is Gold beach approx 177 miles south of Newport taking the scenic route with view points such as Neptune State Scenic Viewpoint, Cape Perpetua, Heceta Head Lighthouse and a couple other spots.
Day 7 we plan on checking out as many redwoods as humanly possible, heading to Eureka we stop off at Redwoods National State Park and Patricks Point State Park.
Last stop for part 1 of this series is Fort Bragg, our final stopover before San Francisco. This section will mainly feature a drive through the Avenue of Giants this runs parallel with Highway 101 but takes a slightly more scenic approach through the redwoods for what should be an awesome little drive.
Have you driven Highway 101 or Highway 1.. any tips? Let us know in the comments! Thanks.
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