As a child, I spent much time swimming or lazing on light brown sandy Indian Ocean beaches with huge waves in South Africa in a beautiful city called Durban with in a all-year sub-tropical climate. When I moved to London in my early twenties, I realised that despite me loving the city for it's dynamic cultural influences and cosmopolitan nature, I would always miss the sea. So we get our fix every Winter where we travel to fun sunny destination for at least one week, to top up our vitamin D!
When our son was 5 months old, we planned to escape the Winter sun for 3 weeks just after Christmas. We felt a bit more 'seasoned' as we knew our son had just travelled to Germany and Jamaica when he was 3 and 4 months old. California seemed like the exciting and suitable fit.
Both my husband and I have been before, but experienced it very differently: me more laid back, keeping it more social and sticking to the big cities, whilst he experienced all the sights and sounds as a true tourist on a road trip without really feeling the soul of California. We decided to do a road trip, starting from San Francisco, going down to San Diego, to maximise the experience, but in a very different style, as we had our precious baby to consider as first priority!
The Thought Process of a Road Trip with an Infant or Toddler
So road-tripping with an infant is not for the faint-hearted but we braved it. We focused on making our baby feel comfortable, not rocking his routine too much but keeping the main elements like ensuring he has adequate sleep, naps and not impacting his feeding times, and ensuring we all have fun and spend quality time together.
For this reason we did the following:
- Taking a few special things that helped him feel at home like his sleeping bag, crib mobile, car seat and favourite toys
- Staying at each hotel for at least 3-5 nights to not allow too much change too quickly
- Ensuring the hotel had a bath and supplied a crib plus kettle (for his formula)
- Doing the long drives at night so that he could sleep and not be disturbed
- Taking breaks every 2 hours on each drive to allow for some movement and change of atmosphere
- Staying along the California 1 route between San Francisco and San Diego at a few places so that the we could experience each place at leisure and also give him a chance to adjust and not feel out of his comfort zone
- Ensure that we kept his bedtime routine and playtime everyday albeit in different locations
What made us anxious was that we were travelling to a coastal destination in Winter, for the first time, and that the temperatures varied widely, from 13 degrees Celcius in San Francisco to 25 degrees Celcius in Los Angeles and San Diego. We had to be a lot smarter with packing to ensure we travelled reasonably. This involved including layers for baby including a jacket, jumpers and plenty of under layers too.
The California Itinerary
We decided on the following itinerary for seasonal reasons and to make our trip work more effectively.
Landed in San Francisco from London (flight 11 hours 5 minutes via British Airways)
8 nights in San Francisco:
- We landed in San Francisco and stayed with my family for a 4 nights. Here we ventured into the outskirts of San Francisco & Napa Valley
- Following this, we moved into a hotel in San Francisco city for 4 nights to celebrate New Year's Eve and explore the city
3 nights in Monterey
- We hired a car in San Francisco and drove down to Monterey for 3 nights (2 hour drive) to explore Santa Cruz along the way then The Big Sur, Monterey Bay and Carmel
- Drive down to Santa Barbara for 3 nights to spend time exploring the area there including Malibu and San Timeon
5 nights in Los Angeles
- Los Angeles is one of my favourite cities in the world so we spent 6 days here exploring the main sights and using it as a base to visit Malibu, Universal Studios, Laguna & Huntington Beach and San Diego
Departure from Los Angeles back to London (10 hours 25 minutes via British Airways)
So the excitement began! Unfortunately a storm hit the area for a couple of days which meant we had to revise our travel slightly, but we still had tons of fun. See the next posts to find out what we did when we got there and what can be recommended!
Much Love
Shanti
The Kensington Diary
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