Travelling in California

We're all booked up and most of our plans are in place for California this summer. We're spending our first 4 days in San Fran, 2 days at Yosemite, 3 days in the Monterey area then down to LA to see a friend for 3 days then we'll be making our way back up to SF for our last few nights before flying home. Any advice on places we have to check out between Monterey and LA? We have 1-2 nights spare on the way back up that we'd like to check out somewhere we haven't seen yet. We've booked hotels and they say I should expect to pay local tax when I check in - any heads up on how much that is? We don't have any hidden stuff like that in the UK so I'm a bit skeptical when I'm working out a budget for the trip.

We're staying at some low budget places to save $$ on the trip - we're staying at the downtown hostel in San Fran (private room with private bathroom) on a friends recommendation and the Bug Hostel in Yosemite because my fiance thought it looked like a quirky place staying in a 'private permanent tent'. Hopefully no one has heard of murders at either of them!

Been back from CA for a few days now and thought I'd write a quick review for anyone doing the same trip. Thanks for the advice anyone who gave it it definitely made things easier.

We spent 4 days in San Fran and stayed at the Hostel International Downtown on Mason Street in a private room with ensuite bathroom. It was fantastic and felt more like a budget hotel than a hostel - it came in at $400 for 3 nights which is pretty cheap for central San Fran. It was literally next door to everything we wanted to do - bike rentals, the BART and muni for transport etc. We biked the bridge which was great, saw the giants play, went to alcatraz and did some trampoline dodgeball at house of air.

We moved on to Yosemite next - we picked up our car and drove the 3-4 hours across state and stayed in a place called the Bug Hostel which was pretty bad. It was my fiance's pick as she liked the idea of these 'permanent tents'. It was the hottest thing I've ever slept in - it was 3am, I was naked, lying still and dripping with sweat! The food there was amazing though so not all bad. Yosemite itself was amazing - I really enjoyed walking up to the waterfalls and climbing all the rocks / swimming in the lake where the waterfall ends. We also did a guided bus tour around Yosemite for about $25 which was well worth it as the park ranger really got through a lot and as we were only there a day it was great. I've never been awestruck by beauty before so I was really impressed.

We moved on to Monterey and Carmel staying in a place called the Carmel Hill Lodge / Knights Inn which was good value for money. Nice, clean room with a huge TV and full cable! We chilled out here and saw a couple of films, did some shopping and took a few trips to Monterey and Carmel. I wasn't too excited by Monterey but I found Carmel very unique - the fairytale style cottages are amazing and I loved the atmosphere. It's a great place to just wander around and I loved how dog friendly it was with plenty of shops having their own dog that I could pet while my fiance shopped.

We moved down to LA for 3 days to visit a friend who showed us the sights. We stayed at the Azul Inn which looked like a prison from the outside but was really nice in our room. Our friend took us to Manhattan beach, the Santa Monica pier and a few other places and we ate at some great places. I loved Umami burger and a place called Public School (I think). I wasn't too enthused by LA as a city but the pockets that our friend took us to were great. I also enjoyed discovering a new fruit - the pluot!

Our last stop before San Fran to fly home was Santa Barbara and my fiance loved it there. We stayed at a place called Home Away from Home which turned out to be a BnB in a ladies house which was very comfortable and a good place to stop. We had some good food here and checked out a cool farmers market. We did some shopping at an outlet centre about 30mins away which was good.

In San Fran before we flew home we stayed at a place called the Cable Car Court Hotel which was cheap (we were trying to save as much money to buy clothes with) which wasn't great and I'd definitely not recommend it.

I was really impressed by SF, Yosemite, Carmel and the general feel of California. People were very friendly everywhere we went. Drivers were a bit aggressive in LA but I guess that's normal in most cities around the world. Driving was a bit confusing but fine when you get your head around the fact that a red light doesn't apply to you if you're turning right and that 4 way stops are first come first serve. I'd recommend people get the optional car insurance of like $8 a day as we were very worried we were going to get charged as some idiot at Yosemite opened his car door into our car and made a small dent / paint scratch but luckily they didn't see it when we dropped it off. I was also a bit surprised by the amount of homeless people in San Fran and LA - it was a lot higher than London and I found it quite uncomfortable being practically harassed for money every time we crossed a road etc but we learnt to ignore them and carry on. One thing about SF I was really impressed by was the public transport - the BART and Muni were very cheap and we used them a lot to get around the city for just $2! I loved the food which I knew I would and I easily put on 8-10lbs in just over 2 weeks! Cheesecake factory, Umami burger, In'N'Out (jesus christ I loved this place, the whole 50s theme and simple menu were great), The Strand in LA, the way the USA does eggs...I could go on forever!