Seeking guidance on a week long LA to Bay Area trip

TheD00d
2026-02-02T02:33:20Z

Hello Tildes travelers,

I'm sure questions like this get asked often, but I'm having a hard time cutting through the SEO spam and AI BS about travel and feeling a bit overwhelmed at the options.

I digress, as the title states, my wife and I are heading to California in early June for a wedding in the bay area. Neither of us have been to California and wanted to make a big trip out of it, roughly eight-ish days with two being dedicated to wedding activities. We both are from the Midwest and really want to see what California has to offer. Ideally we would love some help with making an itinerary of things to do and places to see since its such a big state and with so much to do. A Few things we'd love to try and do: see Palm Springs (wife is an architect), explore LA, drive the coast, explore the bay area and finally see some giant sequoia trees. It sounds like a lot so I'm not sure how that all might shake out, or even if its possible in the given time frame. Which is why I am appealing to you all for some help.

Roughly, and I mean roughly our plan is this:

Day 1: Fly into California

Arrive in Palm Springs (if we can) spend evening and the next day exploring the city

Day 3: Drive into LA

Explore the city for the day and spend the evening in LA

Day 4: Drive up the coast

Spend the day driving up the coast and end the evening staying in a coastal town (Stopping in Santa Barbra and staying Arroyo Grande or some similar town halfway to San Fran)

Day 5: Arrive in San Fran

Spend the morning driving the rest of the coast and arrive in the bay area

Spend the early part of the day exploring San Fran then drive to Pleasanton (location of wedding)

Spend evening doing wedding things

Day 6: Day of the wedding

Wedding stuff (woo!)

Day 7: Drive from Fremont to Calaveras Big Trees State Park

Spend the day exploring some of the inner portion of California and get our big tree fix

Spend the evening driving home

Day 8: Flyout of San Jose or Oakland

Does this seem doable? Is this stupid? Any thing you would change? Really we don't have anything done yet minus the RSVP and the dates specifically. I'm not looking for anything crazy specific, minute by minute to hour by hour. That is asking a lot for a random internet stranger but any help would be really appreciated.

Comments URL: https://tildes.net/~travel/1sgi/seeking_guidance_on_a_week_long_la_to_bay_area_trip

Votes: 15

Comments: 19