Active California: LA to San Francisco Self-Drive Tour

Fifteen nights from Los Angeles to San Francisco, self-drive with the flights included, built round activity rather than sightseeing.

Santa Monica takes the first two nights, with Abbot Kinney Boulevard and a private surfing lesson. Sequoia National Park follows for two, with a private naturalist-guided hiking day and General Sherman, which is the largest tree on earth by volume and has been standing for something over two thousand years, with Kings Canyon available as an extension.

Yosemite comes next for three nights by way of Mariposa and its gold rush history, with a small-group guided tour covering the geology, the wildlife and the history, and the Glacier Point road open from mid-May to November. Yountville in Napa follows for two with a guided wine tour, then Healdsburg in Sonoma for two more with another. Sausalito takes the last three, by way of Muir Woods, with the ferry into San Francisco and a sunset catamaran sail under the Golden Gate.

Flights, fully insured car hire, the named activities, all the accommodation and round-the-clock support while travelling are included, and the price is quoted per person. Sixteen days with two or three nights everywhere leaves room for the guided days, which are what distinguish this from a standard California drive. Summer and early autumn are the seasons, since the Yosemite high country is under snow for much of the year and the waterfalls there run hardest in late spring. Yosemite accommodation also books out further ahead than anywhere else on the route.