San Francisco To San Diego Road Trip: 23 Stops + Itinerary

San Francisco to San Diego is the most popular section to drive along the famous California Highway One road trip route, which is also known as the Pacific Coast Highway. We drove it in 2019 and we were shocked by how many excellent places there were to stop along the 600-mile coastal road. Our favorites included Carmel, Big Sur, Solvang, Santa Barbara and the various golden sandy beaches throughout. It’s an amazing road trip, so you’re in for a real treat.In this guide we show you the 23 awesome places to stop on your San Francisco to San Diego road trip, and as a bonus we’ll throw in our itinerary ideas for 7 days, 10 days and 14 days at the end.Our ExperienceWe spent 12 days driving the California coastline from San Francisco to San Diego back in the fall of 2019 as part of a three month American southwest road trip. Since then we’ve driven more of the most popular US road trips and we can honestly say that driving from SF to San Diego is one of our favorites.It was our first time i...