Road Trip: From San Francisco to Seattle in 12 days

A Santa's Workshop of the weird, kooky and borderline legal, why the gods chose this bay on the Californian coast as their Garden of Eden we'll never know. But choose it they did.

We chose it too, as the kicking-off point in what my GF and I planned as our dream holiday - a road trip through warm and golden California, up the rugged Pacific Coast, through the rural weirdness of Oregon and into the cool and cosmopolitan 'burbs of Seattle. A tad under 2,000km in 12 days.

A challenge, you say? Not if, like us, your preferred form of travel is to sit back and have the scenery carried past you. But when we checked into our corner room at the Mandarin Orient we discovered that all we had to do to take in the sights was to look out our window.

Just look at the photo above if you don't believe me. Golden Gate? Check. Alcatraz? Check. Coit Tower? Check. Bay Bridge? Check.

There was nothing for it but to delay setting off on our road trip, and instead get a feel of the streets of San Francisco. First up was a walking tour of North Beach with City Guides. (The tours, conducted by volunteers, are free - you pay what you think is fair at the end.)

The tour began at a small neighbourhood bar - Specs as it's known locally - across the road from the City Lights bookshop. From there we were shown a part of San Francisco that began life as an exclusively Italian area, gradually becoming home in turn to US Navy dropouts, the beatnik movement, the first strip clubs in the USA - and of course backdrop to half of the TV shows I grew up on - before regeneration made it the real-deal bustling neighbourhood it is today.

The tour is a great way to lay down markers for later visits, locating great pizza restaurants (which featured as the late Robin William's home in Mrs Doubtfire), bookshops, and one historic bar - which somehow survived the earthquake and great fire of 1906 when the largely Irish fire brigade played their hoses on it as the rest of the area burned. Ahem. Even in an earthquake zone, you'll never beat the Irish.

The first rule of San Francisco is not to call it San Fran. The second rule is if you're travelling with a family-sized group, you've got to stay at the Stratford Hotel on Powell Street. This affordable hotel is about 60 seconds from Union Square and Market, so if you're a relapsing shopaholic you won't need a cab to haul your swagbags back from Bloomingdales, Macy's or the Westfield Center. Unless you like doing it for effect.

Anyway, next day it was up late, turn over for another snooze, and then up and out onto the historic cable cars that took us up Nob Hill and down to Fisherman's Wharf. Yes, you can pay the conductor after you board. And yes, you can stand on the running board, hang onto the outer poles and grin mindlessly. You're on your holiers! In Californ-i-a! Whee!

We leapt off near Washginton Square and made our way towards Mama's - said to be the best breakfast in town, with short stack pancakes dripping in maple syrup top of the to-do list. But we'd never find out, as the queues were up the street. We'd been warned, and had a plan b - so while we brunched at Divines we watched Mama's queue inch forward. We paid and left. If we'd queued we might be there still.

After all, we had things to do, people to meet, and a bike ride ahead of us - over the Golden Gate. But not before we meandered up Coit Tower to see the wonderfully life-affirming depression-era murals of the 1930s, and then meandered over to the zig-zag hill of Lombard Street - the crookedest street in the word.

By the time we hit Fisherman's Wharf, and checked out the preserved WWII submarine and liberty ship, we needed a sugar hit - easy enough to find in the fairground atmosphere of the Wharf. But even more beguiling was a sound coming from Pier 45, a sound like a million old music boxes playing at once.

And I know that perhaps that's an acquired taste, but in an arcade at the end of the pier we found ourselves in the Musee Mecanique - one of the world's largest privately owned collections of mechanically operated musical instruments and antique arcade machines.

Like the proverbial kids in the candy shop, we ran riot - stuffing quarters into pinball machines from the 1940s, 19th century hand-cranked music boxes, what-the-butler-saw peep shows from the 1920s and 1980s shoot-'em-ups. And at a quarter a go, nostalgia was never so cheap.

But the great outdoors was calling us and we obeyed, stocking up on picnic foods at Trader Joe's supermarket before renting out bikes and setting out for the Golden Gate. It's a nice ride, mostly flat, mostly off street - and mostly into the face of strong gusts of salty wind blowing off the Pacific Ocean. We cycled along Aquatic Park (great spot for a swim - alas, no togs and skinny dipping is an offence in the US of States), through Fort Mason, stopped for a picnic en route and then up onto the Presidio - and on to the bridge.

It's some view, and if like me you fear heights, a terrifying but thrilling ride. We cycled on to Sausalito - no more than 10 miles in total, but a lovely leisurely way to spend a day.

We rolled our bikes onto the ferry back to SF, gazing back at the fog rolling over the hills and down into cutesy Sausalito. We slipped past Alcatraz and stared back at the golden bridge picked out in the grey fog - and it was right then I had the (utterly brilliant) idea... of selling Golden Gate paint to tourists.

Here's the thing: San Francisco has 16m visitors a year. Just sell a $20 tin of paint - Golden Gate Paint! - to just 10pc of them and you've got a multimillion dollar business. No-one else is doing it... and if you get it up and running, I want my cut!

But I'm not the first person to dream of striking gold in California, so I put that dream to the back of my mind and figured it was time to hit the road. Next morning we picked up our rental car from the garage (just two blocks from Union Square) and we were off.

There are a million songs about driving in the warm California sun, but before singing any of them we needed to get our driving hats on. Of course we were nervous about driving on huge freeways, but the moment we started we know it'd be fine - and we rolled south, towards the Pacific Coast Highway.

A legend in itself, the PCH is a two-lane asphalt-topped road running most of the coast of California. Jaw-droppingly scenic and flag-wavingly all-American, we took it south to Santa Cruz - ground zero for US surf culture, and the first place anyone rode a wave outside Hawaii - and then on to Monterey, an area that will be forever associated with John Steinbeck. Even today it's the fruit-growing capital of the USA and you'll still see strings of labourers making their way across fields of peaches and grapes, artichokes and almonds.

If you're driving, stop at any of the farm stores on the road. Freshly picked that morning, and at a fraction of the price.

We drove through Carmel-on-the-Sea, home to millionaires and wealthy bohos, including former town mayor Clint Eastwood - and with judicious stamping on the accelerator we managed to make Big Sur before sunset.

We pulled off Highway 1 into the Glen Oaks motor lodge - a warm friendly place that will remind you of your favourite Seventies US sitcom, right in the heart of rustic California. Just enough time for a walk before dinner brought us into the woods, down a small glen and out beside a creek fringed with ferns, with boulders damming up just enough water for a refreshing dip the next morning.

Glen Oaks have married ecological soundness with creature comfort - a charming rustic hideaway decorated in a bijou California style with warm oranges, browns and greens. Heated bathroom floors are a great morning treat, and across the road there's the Big Sur Roadhouse where the seasonal menu is filled with locally sourced organic ingredients.

You'll love Big Sur. But wear a lumberjack shirt. I had mine on next morning when we breakfasted on coffee, sausage, egg, and biscuits and gravy at the Big Sur Bakery, and they greeted us like locals. And the real locals were full of chat - no cold shoulders in warm Big Sur. Good folk.

But all too soon we had to go. We were doubling back north towards the Giant Redwoods in our all-American SUV (made in Japan of course - but didn't Elvis drive a Honda in Roustabout?).

We sped past highway patrolmen (CHiPS! Jon and Ponch!), past Google HQ in Mountain View, back over the Golden Gate towards the Redwoods. A quick overnight in Willets, dinner in Lumberjacks ('Where the big boys eat!') and the next thing you know, we were surrounded by a forest of 1,700-year-old gentle monsters, towering up 100m over us.

Walking into a grove of these giants is like entering a cathedral. There's dignity and majesty floating somewhere, the breeze stops blowing, the air smells like incense and the light filtered through the branches comes out green and red like though a stained glass window. And if you get bored with the sacred, there's the good old profane fun of driving your SUV though the trunk of a tree and a million other roadside attractions. And what else did you expect, son? You're in Californy!

Getting there:

Aer Lingus flies direct from Dublin to San Francisco and the flight takes 11 hours and a little over 10 hours back. (www.aerlingus.com)

You'll never regret the Mandarin Oriental. Seriously (mandarinoriental.com/sanfrancisco)

Stratford Hotel. Top value (hotelstratford.com)

Glen Oaks Motor Lodge (glenoaksbigsur.com)

Budget rent-a-car are the best choice if you're going to make a 2,000km long road trip - as we found they charge least for one-way trips. Other outfits levy big charges if you don't drop the car back to your pick-up point (www.budget.com)

Most important of all is forward planning. And if you want to get the most out of your US trip, check out www.DiscoverAmerica.com – a one-stop shop for information on the best routes, attractions and unmissable moments of the United States.

The official Visit California website is www.visitcalifornia.co.uk.

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