South California Coast or North California & Oregon

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keith273231176
keith273231176

I’m looking to get from San Francisco to Seattle and Olympic National Park and have two different options in mind; either drive the PCH south over around 3 days (is this long enough to take in all the stops and do a bit of hiking on the way?), spend a couple of days in San Diego and then fly from either San Diego or LA to Seattle, or drive north from San Francisco, taking a day in Shasta Trinity national forest and a full day at Crater lake, then heading up the Oregon/Washington coast, probably to Olympic National Park first rather than Seattle.
Given that my priorities are to take the journey slowly and spend a decent amount of time hiking rather than being in a car for 10 hours per day, which option sounds better? Ultimately I’ve heard/read that the south California coast is unparalleled; how does the Oregon coast compare, and does the greater variety of national/state parks in NoCal and Oregon justify missing out on the SoCal coast? Unfortunately I can’t incorporate both stretches into one journey!
tl;dr NoCal/OR coast + Crater Lake or PCH from SF to LA?

Any advice on either of these options would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

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Jingili
Jingili

If you were to take Option 2 (drive from San Francisco to Seattle via Crater Lake NP and Olympic NP) how many days would you have for that? And what time of year?

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hermosajoe
hermosajoe

Yeah how long do you have for this entire trip, the coast, Crater Lake, Olympic NP etc.? What time of year?
Any camping plans?
IMO, the northern California coast is the most scenic/dramatic, cool small towns and less touristy/expensive. You also have a couple incredible Redwood Groves.
Six Rivers-Trinity NF is fantastic, remote and pristine. You could spend weeks exploring.

From SF, up to coast to Crescent City cut inland to Crater and north to Columbia Gorge and Olympic NP is a great road trip, need about 10-14 days to do it properly.

3 days from SF to San Diego is moving pretty fast, once you hit LA it's all suburb and congested driving all the way to the border, some nice beaches and good surfing but you need to know where to go. 3 days is not enough.

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Jingili
Jingili

I also don't think SF > LA > SD is the buzz that Northern California > Redwoods > Crater Lake > Columbia River Gorge (amid much else) is. But it depends on your total time SF > Seattle (including in Seattle).

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pacificgroove
pacificgroove

Lassen Park is a fine place to hike

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Jingili
Jingili

Lassen Volcanic NP flies beneath the radar, but has an incredible effect on you.

It feels like a place where the earth is really young - apart from the magnificent mountain itself, and some pretty interesting geothermal features - everywhere you look you see acts of natural violence.

Rocks as big as houses cracking and falling, great scars everywhere from the forces that formed the place, steep cliffs, jagged canyons, and rapid erosion everywhere - and it's all still going on.

Yosemite NP has some of the same violent qualities, but at Lassen Volcanic, it's really in your face.

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55vineyard
55vineyard

What time of year is your trip? Right now a section of Highway 1 (only PCH in Southern California) has been closed by a massive mudslide south of Monterey for over a year now, forcing drivers to detour over to Hwy 101 to Paso Robles. Caltrans just announced earlier this week that the road is now going to reopen in mid July, two months ahead of the earlier projected date.

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