Top 5 Favorite California Hotels

California has some of our favorite National Parks, cities and activities! We’ve driven the entire coastline of California and have stayed in a lot of amazing places. On road trips like these, sometimes the hotels are just as important as the activities. We try to book places that are unique, interesting, affordable and add to the experience vs just being a place to sleep for the night. While we do stay in our fair share of chain hotels, we love something a bit more unique that we will always remember.

Here are some of our favorite places we’ve stayed during our travels through California! Our #1 on this list still may be one of our top hotels we’ve EVER stayed at!

These hotels were all visited during road trips up and down the coast of California. One trip took us from San Francisco to San Diego, and the other from north from San Francisco up through Oregon and Washington. Check out each of those pages for more details, and our vlogs at the bottom of the page! Hopefully this helps you pick a hotel that adds to your adventure!

5. San Diego – Best Western Hacienda Old Town

There are so many places to stay in San Diego – and during this trip, we chose to stay in the area of ‘Old Town’. It was in a good location – close to activities we wanted to do like the zoo, USS Midway, beach and more. The rooms here were nothing exciting, but what we really enjoyed was the outdoor pool and the proximity to dining and activities in Old Town. Each night we could walk to dinner from our hotel with plenty of options, and they even have fun activities for the kids like dipping your own candles in the center of Old Town. We always love to pick a hotel where you can walk to activities rather than drive.

Website: Best Western Hacienda Old Town

4. Fort Bragg – Surf and Sand Lodge

This small hotel is in the perfect location. It’s steps from a gorgeous, almost empty beach. It also has a walking/biking path that takes you directly to the famous Glass Beach. We spent the evening walking to down the path to the beach and tossing a football in the front lawn with the waves crashing in the background. Each of the rooms in this small hotel has its own balcony with adirondack chairs overlooking the ocean. It’s also only 15 minutes from Mendocino which has an incredible coastline to explore. Fort Bragg is kind of busy and not overly charming (sorry!), but the hotel was in a good location for exploring and the hotel itself was very peaceful and nice.

Pic from their website https://surfsandlodge.com/

3. Bodega Bay – The Inn at the Tides

Just north of San Francisco is the small town of Bodega Bay. This town is famous for the filming of the movie, The Birds! We needed a place to stay after we drove up the coast from San Francisco and spent the day at Point Reyes National Seashore, and are so happy we picked this town. It’s a small coastal town with great seafood restaurants and a small harbor. The Inn we stayed at was gorgeous. It was broken out into small blocks of rooms throughout the property, which made each room feel secluded. It had a beautiful pool and hot tub we could enjoy. They gave us a nice bottle of wine and there were even some farm animals on the property. They also gave us free breakfast at the restaurant across the street that had ocean views.

Website: https://www.innatthetides.com/

2. Crescent City – Fern Hook Cabins

Crescent City is a town just north of Redwood National Park and south of the Oregon border. While doing this drive, you’ll likely need a place to stay around this area, and rather than a basic hotel, check out these amazing cabins. After a full day of exploring and hiking the trails of the Redwoods, we were so excited to check out our tiny home for the night. This adorable cabin is nestled right in the center of a forest with huge trees surrounding you. It has 2 bedrooms and a small kitchen. We stopped at the grocery before arriving so that we could make dinner there that evening and then enjoyed the outdoor picnic table and porch. It had no TV, so we enjoyed disconnecting and playing some card games outside. Even after a full day in the Redwoods, we were not quite ready to leave, so this is a great way to still be immersed in the Redwoods!

Website: https://fernhookcabins.com/

1. San Luis Obispo – Madonna Inn

This hotel…. it’s the best ever. 🙂 Not only is it in a great area near San Luis Obispo – amazingly cute town, and near the beach, but the hotel itself is the coolest thing ever. I have about a thousand pictures, so I’ll try to pick just the best. What makes this hotel so amazing is that each room is custom decorated. You may look at the rooms and think it’s weird… or too kitschy, but the hotel is actually extremely nice.

There are ton of choices of rooms – from ones that look like you’re in a cave, to a swiss chalet, to western themed. We stayed in a room that had a 2nd level for the kids. Our bed was downstairs and they could take a curved staircase up to a 2nd level that had 2 beds for the kids. We also really enjoyed that it had a balcony overlooking the rolling hills.

The property itself is also huge and immaculate. It has a horse farm, a huge, heated pool, a super pink dining room and more. And – it’s only a few minutes from downtown SLO which was a favorite town of ours on this road trip. I really want to go back and stay in every single room 😀