California Road Trip: Big Sur, Yosemite, etc

[ktuli]

My wife and I are planning a trip out to California in August. The plan is to meet up with a friend in LA, drive up the coast to Monterey Bay, visit the aquarium there, then swing back through Yosemite back to LA.

We're definitely planning on hitting Big Sur, and will spend a couple days in Yosemite. However, I wanted to do some crowd sourcing here and see what recommendations folks have for those "can't miss" locations, or the "hidden gems" you don't see in the tour books. Speaking of which - if you have any recommended books to use as a guide, I'd love that information too.

This is my first time out this way, so I'd love to get a mix of those iconic locations as well as a variety of not-so-common shots. Please don't just limit suggestions to the parks... anything along the route listed in the plan is great... so if you know of a good spot to shoot the Golden Gate Bridge, or you know of a great little town along the coast, please send that along, etc.

Thanks!

- Bill

[rpcrowe]

One thing to take into consideration is lodging at Yosemite... The lodging in the Park is often fully booked. Although the town is listed as twenty miles from the Park, it is another approximately twenty miles or so from the gate of the park to the Yosemite Valley where most of the iconic images are. In the Summer, there are often traffic jams along the road and you cannot drive into the Valley. Instead, you must take a shuttle bus into the Valley and from point to point within the Valley.

Andrew Hudson's "Photo Secrets" books are great ways to see and photograph the most within the shortest time.

San Francisco and Northern California...

http://www.amazon.com/PhotoSecrets-S...=photo+secrets

Yosemite...

http://www.amazon.com/PhotoSecrets-Y...crets+yosemite

The books provide information regarding the best times of day to visit photogenic areas...

While Summer is, IMO, probably the worst time to visit Yosemite, visiting it any time is better than not visiting it...

[ktuli]

Richard,

Thanks for the pointers!

- Bill

[darekk]

Maybe Point Lobos (36.515840N, -121.941065W) and Año Nuevo (37.113672N, -122.327558W) state reserves. First one beatiful, in second one is the breeding colony of the northern elephant seal (females come earlier, males much later, sometime in summer probably). You can also shoot the Point Pigeon Lighthouse (37.181733N, -122.393962W),


(small fragment of a much larger picture ...)

North of Monterey Bay unfortunately ...
I was once there 10 years ago driving the California State Route 1 from San Francisco heading south, sleeping one day in a rented vehicle / one day in motels or motel.
And Sequoia National Park obviously is very interesting, (was there too, few days later during another trip).