![Road Trips From San Diego [Plus Day Trips, Staycations, and Camping]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/UqQ3I455gNw/maxresdefault.jpg)
So San Diego is kind of at the corner of the United States. Obviously, you know where it is. It’s on the map. But from here, there’s a lot of jumping off spots, a lot of road trips, day trips, staycations. All kinds of fun stuff right here, super convenient. We’re going to get into a lot of those and kind of run through some of our favorites right now.
Cassidy Lewis:
Hello. I’m Cassidy Lewis.
Chris Erickson:
And I’m Chris Erickson.
Cassidy Lewis:
And we are both realtors here in North County, San Diego. And this is where you come for all things North county. We’re dropping new videos every single week on neighborhoods, things that do, places to go.
Chris Erickson:
Go from San Diego, you can get to a ton of places, deserts, mountains, kind of Northern California, central California. You can go down to Mexico. You can go at all kinds of places. It’s a super easy jumping off spot.
So the first place we’re going to stop off is the desert out in Palm Springs. It’s about a two to two and a half hour or drive, depending on where you’re going. But great place to vacation. My wife likes to go out there and just get like a nice little boutique hotel. We’ve done it a handful of times. Hang out by the pool, go out to dinner, all that kind of stuff. We just went out there … Well, I just went out there for my brother’s bachelor party. Golfing, there are a million golf courses out there so no lack of there. We just did a little par three. Literally, if you bring it up on a map up and look down at Palm Springs, there are a million golf courses.
There’s like high season and low season. The winters are a little more packed out there because it is a desert, so it’s a little bit cooler out there. But even just surrounding there, there’s a bunch of little cool areas. LaQuinta is actually where we stayed out there. Joshua Tree to the north, if you want some hiking and a little bit more of that exploring.
Cassidy Lewis:
One of the other great spots that you can get to pretty easily from North County, San Diego is the central coast of California, and there is a ton to check out there. There’s Santa Barbara, there’s San Luis Obispo. There’s Morro Bay, which is a spot my family’s gone to and road tripped a few times in the last six months, 12 months and we absolutely love it. There’s a ton of nature to see. There’s a lot of hiking. There’s great resorts. There’s great VRBO type places to stay at. There’s wine country to check out in Paso Robles and Santa Barbara, and a couple other random little towns in that central valley area.
Chris Erickson:
And if you are traveling up there, one of the most beautiful roads, sometimes it’s shut down because they’ve had a few landslides, but the one going through Big Sur. It’s a beautiful drive. There’s not much actually in there. There’s like a little glamping campground to the south. From there all the way up to the north, there’s not much, but it’s a killer drive.
And then recently kind of in that Santa Barbara area, we just took a trip. It’s called Flying Flags. It’s like a RV resort, but they also have little kind of cabins if you will. So we rented out a little two bedroom cabin up there. There’s a pool there. It’s a great hopping off spot, like [inaudible 00:02:49]. If you are thinking about going up there and you do have an RV, my brother’s done it a few times and I haven’t been to many of these RV camping resorts, but it is killer. Plenty of paved spots for the kids, so we’re doing scooters around. There’s big, huge grass areas, go kick the ball, soccer games and stuff going on, basketball. So it was super fun, highly recommended right in that central coast area.
Cassidy Lewis:
One of the other spots that’s super easy to get to from San Diego is the Big Bear area. Up in the mountains here, there’s great spots for skiing, snowboarding, but also a lot of summer things. There’s boating, there’s cycling, there’s hiking and fishing. There’s pretty much everything you can think of in Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead is just to the east of Big Bear and has a lot of really cool amenities also. It’s not as much a ski resort as Big Bear is, but it’s got a lot of really fun things to do. And the lake is beautiful even just for … They have tours that tour you around the lake and it’s a really cool spot.
Chris Erickson:
And during the wintertime, after like a big snow, just plan accordingly. Either leave like real early or leave during the week, because the weekends, a lot of people from San Diego, from Orange County, from LA, they all have easy access to it. So they’re all going to try to hit the snow. One other mountain actually up to 395 is Mammoth. It’s a little bit longer than Big Bear. You’re looking about seven hours or so, but as far as mountains go, it’s a lot better. It’s a huge ski and snowboard mountain.
Cassidy Lewis:
There’s also a great brewery right in Mammoth. There’s another one right over the hill in June Lake also. So definitely if beer is an addition to your snow trip, definitely some great spots to hit up.
Chris Erickson:
And then recently I went to a bachelor party, another bachelor party, I guess that’s all my road trips, but down in Mexico. So there’s a lot of different little areas of Mexico. There’s like a little wine country in Mexico. There’s like Ensenada. Have a buddy who just went on a surf trip down there. But we went down to a little place called Bajamar and it’s a golf resort. They have two golf courses, one right along the ocean, which is insanely beautiful.
Cassidy Lewis:
So if you don’t want something overnight, you just want an easy little day trip, there are a ton of options.
Chris Erickson:
And then right here locally, right about a hour away from kind of the North County area, maybe a little further from downtown San Diego is our own little Southern California wine country, Temecula. You will still find a ton of little wineries. You could stop at two or three of them. A lot of them have these big open lawn areas where you could go get some wine, get some food. Some of them do have like little food vendors. Some you could bring your own food.
Cassidy Lewis:
And a lot of people in San Diego will have wine clubs. Up in North County, we have one at a winery up there. It’s super cool because you can actually get up there and take advantage of some of the perks of being in the wine club.
So one of the other spots, and this could be maybe not a road trip, road slash boat trip, because when we go, we stay for a couple days. But you could definitely do it in a day is Catalina Island, which is just off the coast kind of right off of Dana Point, Newport area. And there’s a couple of spots that you can jump off. The one that we’d use is Dana Point, just because it’s the closest to North County. But you can jump on a ferry and cruise over to Catalina and there’s a ton to do over there. There’s great restaurants, there’s hiking, there’s little boat trips you can do out there. In the summer, you can snorkel. The water is crystal clear and there’s also a popular scuba diving spot right there off of The Casino, which is pretty famous building here in Southern California.
Chris Erickson:
And then just right up the road, the next county up, is Orange County. Lot to explore up there as well. Right on the Southern portion is a little surf spot called Trestles and it’s very well known. It gets very packed, but it’s a super fun wave. There’s also a killer little campground, so that’s more of a kind of a weekend staycation kind of trip. It’s called San Mateo campground. Nice big open, you’re about a mile from Trestles and they do have a trail going out there.
Cassidy Lewis:
Then if you had a little bit further north in Orange County, our family goes a ton to Disneyland. It is about an hour and 15, hour and 20 minute drive from North County. We’ve had annual passes in the past and so it’s super easy to just get up there even just for an evening and afternoon.
Chris Erickson:
And San Diego County is huge. It goes all the way to the border. It goes all the way up to Camp Pendleton and way far east. So within the county, there’s a lot of day trips you could do. Julian, they’re known for their apple pies. And it does actually snow out there from time to time. So a few times through the year, you’ll see it make the news and everybody’s cruising up there to check out the snow.
And a lot of people living right here, don’t even have to leave San Diego to have a little vacation. So a lot of staycation options, especially from North County. If you’re going downtown, a lot of our hanging and all that kind of stuff we do in North County. So when we do go downtown, it’s kind of like a vacation. There’s a lot to do in the Gaslamp, Seaport Village. Just a lot of cruising around. Especially if there’s a Padre game or something going on, you can kind of include that into your staycation. But you get a hotel down there and right across the bridge actually is another little spot. Cassidy Lewis:
We do Coronado a bunch and biking there is super fun. All the roads are very easy to jump on a bike or rent a surrey, but there’s also great beaches. The main beach is right off the Hotel Dell in Coronado. Another great spot that is super close, right in the heart of North County, is the Omni La Costa Resort and Spa. A really great spot, even though it’s just in your backyard, have amazing pools. There’s a spa. There’s a golf course. There’s a great restaurant, Bob’s Steak and Chop.
One of the other great things to do here because the weather’s so great is camping and there’s a ton of spots. There’s a ton of spots in North County. Also there’s Cardiff State Beach where you can camp. There is Carlsbad, which you can camp there too. But if you want to adventure out into the mountains a little bit, Palomar is amazing. They’ve got two main campgrounds that are really, really cool. And then you can also go to Idyllwild. You can go to [inaudible 00:08:48]. There are a ton of camping options, just like an hour or two, hour, three hour drive from here.
Chris Erickson:
So those are a few road trips and a few other things you could do from right here in San Diego, specifically North County. I mean anywhere in San Diego, you can really do that. But there’s a lot of little areas to check out, a lot to explore. Even living here, like we said, just around the county, there’s a ton to get into and a ton to explore.
So if you guys are thinking about moving out here and you need some more information, you kind of want to know local areas, kind have some questions, want to pick our brains with a few more places you might be able to check out from here. Be sure to reach out. Call, text, email, whatever is easiest for you. We love helping people make that move out here to North County, San Diego. And we are dropping new videos every single week. Neighborhoods, things to do, everything in between, this is one of the in between ones.