Expert: Ernest Tufft - 11/19/2008

Question
QUESTION: Hi we flying in th San Francisco 06/06/09 and picking up an RV for the next 15 days our final destination will be Las Vegas - we have done route 66 down to San Diego and on this trip want to take in Nappa - Lake Tahoe - Yosemitee - Death Valley - Gran Canyon - we will be in a RV so route would have to faciltate camping stops etc. Can you help us out we are four maure adults for THE UK. Can you advis on what route would be best for us please?


ANSWER: Hi Richard,

Ok, I understand your problem now.  Take a look at Hwy 395, which traverses, north and south, the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.  You can travel from Lake Tahoe through to Las Vegas, and by extension highways to Yosemite, Death Valley, and Grand Canyon.  This would form the basis for the RV travel route, but bear in mind that Tioga Pass, which is the high mountain route into the eastern entrance of Yosemite, is sometimes closed as late as early June.  You can determine the opening date at the Yosemite National Park.gov website in the weeks before you leave.  It's still too early to know what kind of winter snowpack will be received in the Yosemite, and how long it will last in the spring.

I don't recommend using the RV in San Francisco.  Park it somewhere, or better yet, delay picking it up until you are ready to leave the city.  SF has excellent public transit, and unless one of your four are unable to walk, this is the easiest way to get around this extraordinarily cramped urban environment.  However, upon leaving you may choose to drive across the Golden Gate bridge and through Marin and Sonoma counties on the way to Napa County.  From the town of Napa, there is a back country road over the Vaca Mountains, which leads through the Suisun Valley and onward to I-80 at Fairfield.  Study these routes carefully, as a lot of time can be spend aimlessly winding around in this mountainous area when enroute to Sacramento.  Take I-80 to Tahoe.  A good stop before Tahoe is at Nevada City, a most splendid Gold Rush town now restored for tourists.  Virginia City, south of Tahoe when enroute to Yosemite is also such a place, but both are worth visiting too.

I don't have immediate recommendations for RV camping facilities, but they are available most everywhere.  Google keyword search will turn up many possibilities, of course.  I recommend using Virtualtourist.com to inquire about recommendations others might make for this, as well as to examine what activities are worth considering.  I have contributed at this website thousands of images and hundreds of written recommendations for visitors for the cities of San Francisco, Napa, Saint Helena, Calistoga, Yosemite (all in California) and Flagstaff, AZ (closest town to Grand Canyon of any size).

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Ernest our friend. How much time would you suggest we should allow to start from the Lake Tahoe leg through to Vegas. We after leaving SF are heading for Napa then Fort Bragg back to Sacremento then over to Lake Tahoe does this sound like a good route we have the RV for 15 nights from the 8th June.

Answer
Mapquest recommends taking CA 20 from Fort Bragg to Williams, and then I-5 south to Sacramento.  This route will wind over two coastal ranges before arriving at the bottoms of the Sacramento Valley where wetland crops, such as rice, are farmed.  Mapquest says the trip will take about 4 hours.  From Sacramento to Tahoe is about 2 hours, with a very steep freeway climb up into the Sierra Mountains via I-80, probably unlike any you have experienced before.  Mapquest estimates a little over 6 hours drive that from South Lake Tahoe to Death Valley, and then another 2 1/4 hours onward to Las Vegas.  This route skips Yosemite completely, I'm afraid, and I for one think Yosemite is more impressive than either Tahoe or Death Valley.  Hope this helps.