California Coast Ride - 3 Days

Train and Bus
Hearst Castle, Coast & Monterey by rails & wheels

3 days / 2 nights
From Los Angeles to San Francisco

Los Angeles to Monterey by Amtrak
From Monterey to San Francisco by Motor Coach

Tour includes :
Amtrak Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo and Monterey. Night in San Luis Obispo, TAXI to/from San Simeon, Hearst Castle tour, 2 nights hotel, 1 dinner, 1 breakfast with tip in Monterey, 17-Mile Drive fee and tax. Amtrak

Day 1: Anaheim or Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo. 221 miles by AMTRAK Coast Starlight train
See below for pictures of traveling by Amtrak

Santa Barbara coast On AMTRAK train leave Anaheim at 8:07 or Union Station, Los Angeles at 10:15 a.m. Riding through Ronald Reagan's California you see Simi Valley, Fillmore, orange groves and green houses by Oxnard reaching the Pacific coast at Ventura. As the train hugs the Pacific coast for the next two hours you see the most magnificent vistas at times the ocean just a few yards away with beautiful beaches and campgrounds. A few miles offshore are Channel Islands. As you turn west through Santa Barbara you can have lunch in the dining car. Leaving the Pacific we turn north at Gaviota passing through Vandenberg Air Force Base and Space Station on the way to Pismo Beach for a brief glance at the Pacific. Fields of strawberries and miles of new vines are all around us as we reach our overnight destination of San Luis Obispo at about 3:40.
Overnight at La Cuesta Inn, San Luis Obispo.

Day 2: San Luis Obispo to Hearst Castle and to Monterey. 80 miles by taxi, 154 by train and bus.
Five City Taxi takes you to San Simeon, about 40 minutes north on Highway One on the coast.
*San Simeon. *Tour No. 1 of Hearst Castle built by Julia Morgan during the 1920s and 1930s for the art collection of world famous newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. This 2 hour tour is ideal for first time visitors with an easy walk, a total of about 150 steps. Back to San Luis Obispo for the train at 3:43 p.m.

Soon the train chugs up Cuesta Grade and then drops down going to the horse ranches of Templeton and pasture lands of Paso Robles and old Franciscan Missions. At Camp Roberts we enter Monterey County and run alongside the Salinas River. Oil fields give way to the Valley, one of the richest agricultural areas in California. Riding through one of the largest vineyards we come upon miles of broccoli, lettuce, flowers and berries. The train lets us off in Salinas where John Steinbeck chronicled the transformation of Monterey county from the days of depression to the wealthier times. The AMTRAK bus takes us past Laguna Seca to the ocean at Monterey Bay where golf courses, mansions and scenic drives take over. It should be just after 7:15 in the evening.

Check in at Bay Park Hotel, Monterey Relax at this full service hotel. Dinner & Breakfast

Day 3: 154 miles by motor coach.

Monterey Peninsula Tour - then to San Francisco.

Spend the morning at the hotel. Between noon and one meet your motor coach. Spend the rest of the day in historic Monterey, Cannery Row, Pacific Grove. See the Pacific crashing on to the rocks and swirling around on the 17 Mile Drive, where the Lone Cypress stands guard. Brush with luxury at the golf courses and resorts of Pebble Beach. Time in Carmel by the Sea for shopping & browsing. Around four we go east through Fort Ord and Castroville to Highway 101 turning north along the San Andreas fault line through Gilroy and Morgan Hill. Soon the artichoke and strawberry fields and green houses give way to the urban sprawl that emerges as we enter San Jose. The pace quickens and slows with the traffic as we drive through the Silicon Valley then past the San Francisco International Airport arriving in the City around 7:30 p.m. The trip ends at your hotel.

Pictures of Amtrak (Coast Starlight Train)

Amtrak Amtrak