Aug 8–15 · 8 days, 7 nights · ~1,550 miles · Seattle → LA, skipping the Olympic Peninsula. Three of us, Hertz car, cheap lodging. Extending to Aug 15 bought a full Mount Rainier day and a full LA day — you still sleep in a bed every night, and nobody races the beach day to a flight anymore.
You cannot swim the northern half of this trip. August water temps: Oregon coast 52–59°F, San Francisco ~58°F. Wetsuit-only.
Sneaker waves on the Oregon/NorCal coast surge 150+ feet up the beach with no warning and have killed 24+ people on the West Coast since 2012. The cold takes your limb control within seconds, and the waves carry sand/gravel that weighs your clothes down.
Rules for Cannon Beach, Boardman, and the Redwood beaches:
Swimmable water starts in SoCal: Santa Monica/Malibu ~69°F, lifeguarded. That's Day 7, and it's where all three water activities live.
| Time | Plan |
|---|---|
| 2:50 PM | Land SEA (DL1045) — straight to the Hertz counter, no car-less downtown window anymore |
| ~3:45 PM | Hertz pickup → drive downtown, arrive ~4:15 |
| 4:30 PM | Pike Place Market — chowder, Piroshky Piroshky, gum wall. Park once (Pike Place garage); everything downtown is walkable |
| +bonus | Waterfront + Seattle Great Wheel (Pier 57, ~$20) — straight downhill from the market |
| +bonus | Space Needle / Chihuly Garden (~$40) — only if you're moving fast; Kerry Park matters more |
| 7:30 PM | ★ Kerry Park — THE Seattle postcard: skyline, Elliott Bay, and on a clear evening Mount Rainier floating behind the city. You'll be on its summit road tomorrow. Free |
| 8:00 PM | Leave Seattle — ~2 hr to the mountain |
| ~10:15 PM | Ashford (Rainier Nisqually gate) — sleep |
| Time | Plan |
|---|---|
| 6:00 AM | Nisqually entrance — in before 7 AM: historically exempt from timed-entry windows (verify 2026 rules on nps.gov), no line, first light on the mountain. $30/vehicle, card OK. Full tank in Ashford — no gas in the park |
| +bonus | Christine Falls — 69-ft falls framed by a stone bridge, steps from the pullout |
| 6:45 AM | Narada Falls — 168-ft curtain; short steep path to the base for rainbows in the mist |
| 7:15 AM–1 PM | ★ Paradise — Skyline Trail (MAIN EVENT) — the best day-hike in Washington: 5.5-mi loop, ~1,450 ft up to Panorama Point staring straight at the glaciers. August = peak wildflowers + marmots. Layers + water; snowfields linger — stay on trail. Zero cell service — download offline maps. Shorter option: Myrtle Falls (1 mi, flat) |
| 1:30 PM | Reflection Lakes — the mirror shot of Rainier, roadside. (Grove of the Patriarchs is still closed — don't detour for it) |
| ~5:30 PM | Leave the park (7 PM is the absolute ceiling — that's a midnight-ish arrival) |
| ACTUAL | Stopped for the night at the Quality Inn in Kelso, WA (I-5 exit 39) instead of pushing to Seaside — no Astoria dinner, no midnight coast driving. The coast is ~2 hr away; Day 3 is replanned from Kelso. |
~4.5 hours after dark past Coos Bay, and Samuel Boardman is gone — you pass it around 9 PM seeing nothing. Rotate drivers at every stop. 2–4 AM is the worst drowsy-driving window there is — if you're near it, take Crescent City; it costs 1.5 hours tomorrow and nothing else. Book Eureka now with a 24-hour front desk (Motel 6 / Super 8 / Quality Inn / Red Lion, Broadway or 4th St) and call with your ETA — small motels lock the office at 11.
No inland shortcut: Willits is a junction town with nothing in it, and CA-20 only saved time you'd have spent waiting at a viewpoint for sunset. Cost of the full coast is 30–60 min of hotel arrival — and you walk the Golden Gate tomorrow morning, so the bridge isn't lost.
Sunrise dropped for ~3 hours more sleep after four hard days — you already got the bridge last night. Every Big Sur stop still lands in daylight (sunset ~8 PM) with ~2 hours of margin on the 2 AM deadline. The risk is Bay Area traffic — if you slip, cut Stanford, it saves an hour with the detour.
Book LAX / El Segundo / Hawthorne now — and book it for BOTH nights, cancelling Friday's mystery hotel if it's refundable. That one change removes the Friday checkout, keeps your bags locked in a room instead of riding through Malibu and a tattoo shop, kills the 7:45 PM check-in squeeze, and gives you a known address for Saturday morning.
The cancelled surf lesson is a gift — you get El Matador and the full Getty, and ~$270 back to the group. The cost: yesterday's Santa Monica swim was the only ocean of the whole trip.
| Time | Plan |
|---|---|
| ~8:30 AM | Hotel shuttle to LAX — no car; it went back last night (Friday 9 PM) |
| ~9:00 AM | Airside |
| 10:59 AM | DL2568 departs → lands SAT 3:59 PM. 8 days, ~1,550 miles, one whole coast |
| Item | Total | Per person |
|---|---|---|
| Flights | $777 | $259 (update with the actual Aug 15 fare) |
| Rental car (8 days) | ~$1,060 | ~$353 |
| Gas | ~$290 | ~$97 |
| Lodging (7 nights, 1 cheap room) | ~$980 | ~$327 |
| Food (8 days × ~$55) | ~$1,320 | ~$440 |
| 🌊 Surf lesson | ~$270 | ~$90 |
| 🌊 Otter kayak | ~$150 | ~$50 |
| Park & entry fees (incl. Rainier $30/vehicle) | ~$120 | ~$40 |
| Transit, parking, tolls | ~$75 | ~$25 |
| TOTAL | ≈ $5,040 | ≈ $1,680 |
Range: $4,700 (frugal) to $5,500. The two extra days buy a full Mount Rainier day — the best day-hike in Washington — and a whole LA day that ends at Griffith at sunset instead of racing to a gate.
Conditions current as of mid-July 2026 — reverify before each leg.
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