Spectacular California

From the airport, just take a taxi to our hotel. We’ll be at the hospitality desk from 2.30 pm to meet you. Later there’s the welcome dinner for your Spectacular California guided motorcycle tour. If you’re still awake afterwards, I think you’ll find something to do this evening!

After picking up your motorcycle, we shake Las Vegas out of our system and head into the low desert. Skirting Death Valley on our left and the Nevada nuclear test sites on our right, we find ourselves at the infamous Cottontail Ranch (not our lunch stop!). From here we head west into the mountains, with a lovely winding ride bringing us to Bishop.

Today we head north towards the Tioga Pass – entrance to America’s most-visited National Park, Yosemite. The towering mountains and canyons surround us as we near the almost 3000m summit. We take our time going down the western slope, stopping occasionally to see the amazing vistas of granite domes and beautiful waterfalls that dominate the park. Yosemite is just as beautiful, wild, rich and sublime as you’d expect, and more so! The riding fun isn’t over yet, as we head north on scenic Highway 120 through the towering redwood, cedar and sequoia forests and the California goldfields to Sonora.

We continue north to San Andreas before picking up a lovely road across the Central Valley to Napa and Sonoma Valleys, the heart of California Wine Country. We’ll take a rest here for lunch at a winery before heading for the Pacific Coast. Here we pick up Highway 1 into Marin County, an unabashed introduction to Californian self-indulgence: a pleasure zone of conspicuous luxury and abundant natural beauty, with sunshine, sandy beaches, high mountains and thick redwood forests. A stop in pretty Sausalito offers us the chance to see San Francisco from across the Bay. Once a hotspot for drunken sailors and bawdy saloons, Sausalito is now much more like the Cote d’Azur. Then it’s over the Golden Gate Bridge and into San Francisco – probably the most iconic city on your Spectacular California guided motorcycle tour!

Enjoy the beautiful city of San Francisco today; a funky individualistic, and surprisingly small place. Iconic parks, famous streets and buildings, great scenery a unique atmosphere make this a city unlike any other. Maybe book a tour to Alcatraz, ride the famous cable cars, or go on a sunset cruise in the bay, options are almost limitless.

Roll out of the city on the beautiful, winding Skyline Boulevard for coffee at Alice’s Restaurant, then onto the Pacific Coast Highway, the famous Route 1, to Santa Cruz for fun and sun on the beach. This is yet another great ride, and we end with the coastal grandeur of the Monterrey Peninsula, whose crescent shaped bay and cypress groves have been celebrated by poets, authors and artists. We’ll stop for lunch, take in the shops, Steinbeck’s Cannery Row and the great ambience before our incredible afternoon ride – the Big Sur.  90 miles along cliff edges, this road is universally considered the best section of Highway 1. Rocky cliffs form a sublime landscape, redwood groves line river canyons and the Santa Lucia Mountains rise out of the blue-green Pacific. About halfway along we come to Esalen, named for the long-gone native tribe who once enjoyed the natural hot springs on a cliff top high above the raging surf. We cruise up to Hurst Castle, where you may take a guided tour of this grand mansion, and our overnight in San Simeon.

We set off through tiny seaside art communities and miles of sandy beaches to Morro Bay. Here we head inland and take the Carillo Highway across mountains and farmland to Bakersfield, country music capital of California. From here we head back into the hills, following the Kern River to Lake Isabella Reservoir. Both Isabella and Kernville towns were moved following the damming of the Kern River and the creation of Lake Isabella reservoir in the 1960s. This area is a haven for wildlife and nature lovers, with no major industries or businesses, reliant almost totally on tourism. Our day’s ride ends at our hotel in Lone Pine. Hopefully there’s time to visit Alabama Hills and the local film museum too.

Well, we’re nearly there, but we have one more spectacular ride for you today. We descend down switchbacks that zig zag into Death Valley, the vista is immense, like looking across a sea of sand and stone. After lunch at Furnace Creek (aptly named!) we rise up from the valley floor to over 600 m elevation at the once thriving Death Valley Junction, current population 4! From here, it is an easy run into Las Vegas. If there’s time we can visit Red Rock Canyon before we return our motorcycles. Later we hope you enjoy the farewell party marking the end of your Spectacular California guided motorcycle tour .

The end of the road, as we say farewell and you prepare for the flight home. We hope you’ve got plenty of photos because you’ve got an awful lot of memories to bring home. What a great week’s riding!