bearphoto

I'm taking a road trip in Sept./Oct through the Nor Cal area but being a So. Cal native I'm not overly familiar with the Nor Cal half of the state.

I usually have about 10 corvettes with me from around the country and I plan on starting the trip in Lake Tahoe. Can anyone advise of interesting or must see locations? Willits/Skunk Train? Hwy 1? Lassen? Redwoods? Time frame will be mid Sept or early Oct.

Any help would be appreciated!

Doug

Jim McCombe

[QUOTE=bearphoto;1595581307]I'm taking a road trip in Sept./Oct through the Nor Cal area but being a So. Cal native I'm not overly familiar with the Nor Cal half of the state.

I usually have about 10 corvettes with me from around the country and I plan on starting the trip in Lake Tahoe. Can anyone advise of interesting or must see locations? Willits/Skunk Train? Hwy 1? Lassen? Redwoods? Time frame will be mid Sept or early Oct.

Any help would be appreciated!

Doug

After your stay in Tahoe, work your way back down to I-5 which will take you up towards Redding and both Mt. Shasta and Lassen
If you like roads with a lot of curves which will take you through some very obscure small towns, go across Hy 299 from Redding into the coastal town of Acata and near by Eureka. If you are into sea food, this area is a fish lovers delight.
From there, take HY 101 South through the Avenue of The Giants and the magnificent Redwoods. Eventually, you will come into Willits and the Skunk Train that will take you back to the coast to Fort Bragg.
From Willits, continue South towards San Francisco on 101 which will get you across the Golden Gate Bridge and eventually to the Monterey Peninsula and the very picturesque town of Carmel.
If you want to visit the Hearst Castle like The Rabbi suggested (reservations will be needed) you may have to detour off of HY 101 because of bridge/road work repair near Big Sur
There are a lot of small Wineries along the way that offers tours and free wine tastings
Jim

The Rabbi

Look for the Hearst castle

bearphoto

We ended one of our tours at Hearst Castle 3 years ago on a whirlwind tour starting Williams, Az where we took the train up to the Grand Canyon. Then we headed out to Cali and up Hwy 395 staying in Lone Pine and toured Death Valley and Scotty's Castle.

The next day we continued up 395 and into Yosemite for the day. The following day was a day tour of Sequoia and Kings Canyon and the next day we hit Hearst Castle. That was 5 national parks, 2 castles in a 7 day time frame!

Great info so far! I have not been to Lassen since I was about 5 so its been 55 plus years. Is there anything to see there via car? We have several people that don't get out of their car much while the rest of us enjoy hiking.

mountainears

Coming back from Tahoe you can cruise through my neck of the woods. Gold country area. Come off highway 50 at Ice House Road for a nice windy journey through the Sierra Foothills, take Wentworth Springs road down to Georgetown (where I live), stop at the historic Georgetown hotel for drinks/food. There is a Chevron in town. Continue down to Coloma / Gold Country and end up back on highway 50 in Shingle Springs.

Can give you more guidance if you think you'll head that way.

Jim McCombe

f you or any of your tour group are members of AAA, you can also stop at any of their offices and pick up free maps as well as brochures with more detailed information about any places that have interest to you.

TCorzett

Lots of awesome roads in NorCal. Are you looking more for places to visit? Scenic roads? "Spirited drives"? I can fill a week of 10hr days with nothing but driving in NorCal, but that might not be what you're after.

I tend to plan trips to drive the roads (not see sites or do other activities) and have a bunch of maps, photos, and write-ups from my previous drives on my blog... not all California, but I don't have a way to filter by state.

I use to run a website/blog detailing driving roads around the SF Bay Area, but it's a few years out of date (and the map doesn't work, making navigation a bit of a pain). A great motorcycle site (although they require a membership to view the details) for an overall view on a map is pashinit.com (although it doesn't seem to be loading for me atm... their tour site works though. Butler Maps makes a nice NorCal map too, but most of the roads are detailed online (I like having physical maps too in case I need to plan a detour on-the-fly).

bearphoto

Yes on scenic and spirited drives. Since I have people coming from all over the country I am looking for interesting things for them to see. People back east or in the mid west do not have the rugged or wide open scenery that we do out west so I try and show them some of the more interesting sites. They can find spirited locations to drive most anywhere in the country so they need more than that to justify coming out west. I have them coming in from Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, Missouri, Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, Az and Cali and most of them come year after year to my tours. I'm born and raised in So. Cali and not too familiar with the northern part but I know its incredible so I need your knowledge and help this year.

TCorzett

How many days do you have in NorCal? Any preferred lodging/hotel locations? Have an exit location (eg going to Oregon or SoCal)?

I drove through there in 2012 (Blog Post). I didn't venture too far from the road and there was lots of great scenery around.



I'm sure there are more involved things to do there for those who want to hike as well.

For a fun road towards the coast I would recommend Highway 36, but it's closed/under construction this summer (CalTrans Road Condition Update). I only bring it up because I was planning a trip to drive that road and was really glad I looked-up the road condition (otherwise would have been stuck waiting for hours for the 1hr opening).

DucatiDon

HWY 36 from Chico to the coast is over 110 miles of nothing but twisty corners

napacruzerc5

Hearst cannot be accessed from NoCal on Hwy 1 due to the landslide. You'll have to go down 101 to 46 west then north on Hwy 1.

Moto One

Simple: HY 89 north out of Tahoe (if South Tahoe this will loop you through Emerald Bay, to Tahoe City, to Truckee, to Sierra Vally, Gray Eagle, Quincy, Chester. Then up to the Lassen Loop, out to Burns, 299 to the coast, Hy 1 South to Stenson Beach, (1 is closed past Stenson) but the road over the hill to Mill Vally is great, but may be a traffic jam at times.

This is almost a reverse of the Calif Mille route.

Mark.

bearphoto

All great info. I hope to stay in South Lake Tahoe before heading over to the Willits area, pick up the Skunk Train and then work our way north to Redwood National Park. Thoughts on route or things to see along the way?