Day Trip Weekend Carlsbad, Torrey Pines, Cabrillo and Old Point Loma Lighthouse

Our weekend mini getaway Carlsbad to Cabrillo- Point Loma Lighthouse

  We admit most of us are "weekend warriors".  We work hard to provide for our family, and we always look forward to spending quality time with them. But, most of us are tight on the budget.   My family and I are always on a look out for a great deal. San Diego area takes about a week to really fully enjoy, and there are so much to see; but sometimes, a two-day or a weekend get-away is all we need.

  

 Legoland is our go-to place when visiting Carlsbad, but the fees can be high if you don't plan ahead.  This past summer, I saw a coupon from McDonald's that says free one child admission for every 1 adult entry.  We immediately saved up for this trip, since it was such a great deal it was definitely hard to pass up.  My 6-year-old son loves Legoland so much, and around the Fall season is always the best time to go. We used our coupon that we kept around the first week of October, and the weather was perfect; it was breezy and cool.  Lines were not that bad at all and we were not frying under the heat of the sun. The food in Lego land was surprisingly great quality, and my kids can't get enough of the Granny's Apple Fries. For more information and other promotional discounts, please visit Legoland.

 

 Legoland

 

Newest Ride- the Submarine at Legoland

But if your family loves to hike; we recommend the Torrey Pines and the Cabrillo National Monument.   Torrey Pines has a great beach with tons of beautiful colorful rocks.  There are options of hiking the trail or just soak up the sun on the beach. The best part, if you come early in the morning,  parking is free along the roadside.  Here's the quick link for more information on Torrey Pines  Click: Torrey Pines.

 

 One of the best places in San Diego area that our family love to visit is the Cabrillo National Monument and the Point Loma Light house. The cost is only $15 for the parking fee. There are no food sold in the park, so bring some water and some snacks during your trip.  Cabrillo has a wonderful view of the city of San Diego and the Pacific Ocean.  When you get lucky, you can see some gray whale migration.  The best part of this park is getting inside the Point Loma Light house. Personally, my family and I love to walk down to the tide pools area, and we also hike at the bay side trail about 2 1/2 miles round trip. The sandstone cliffs are very dangerous to hike down, so be careful when stepping on the sand stones and tide pools. The tide pools area can be very slippery and dangerous.  We recommend for adults and children to wear good fitting non-skid shoes; and for safety always ask the park ranger or ask the visitor center for weather and other precautions. For more information, visit: Cabrillo and Point Loma lighthouse

  

   Here's the link to:

 Cabrillo National Monument and Point Loma Lighthouse

For the one night stay, we booked at the Hampton Inn Delmar/San Diego close to Torrey Pines. We use the Hilton Honors for points and special discounts. We love it because the hot breakfast is free. Here's the link for more information: Hampton Inn

Our mini vacation to Big Sur, Pacific Coast Hwy 1 Sunny California

Welcome to our travel site.

We are family of 4 who loves to travel. This website offers various tips and ideas for families who loves to travel but are on a budget. We truly  believe that the family who travels together stays stronger.  We will share some of our  personal experiences in this blog in hopes that it will inspire and give ideas to other  families. We understand early on that following a budget and having a plan is the key to a  successful vacation that won't break the bank. Hope you enjoy our site    

   

Hotels we like near Solvang, CA and San Simeon, CA- BIG SUR Trip

Sideways Inn in Buelton, CA    

Ragged Point Inn, San Simeon, CA    

The Morgan, San Simeon, CA    

Cavalier Oceanfront Resort CA 

sideways inn

Our top list for our Road Trip travel this summer was Big Sur along the Pacific Coast  highway of sunny California. We also picked some rest stops along our way to the Big Sur, and the first ones were  Pismo Beach for lunch and for dinner we stopped at Solvang, CA. It is the best quick stop  for family with hungry kids. For an affordable and pet friendly hotel, we stayed at the Sideways Inn hotel in Buelton, CA. The hotel was impressively clean and pet friendly.  It  has free hot breakfast daily and is very near the freeway.  The hotel was less than 3 miles  from Solvang, CA where we had dinner. We had great wine tasting in several wineries in  the area that is close to this hotel. We also saw some Ostriches at the Ostrichland USA,  where the kids also experienced feeding those wild Ostriches. On route to our Day Trip of the Big Sur, we passed by several landmarks including the  Morro Bay.
 We headed north to Hwy 1 and reached the Ragged Point Inn resort, and we recommend it as the best lunch or snack stop; this hotel has a stunning view of the Pacific ocean.  My family of four had a  short delicious lunch at the Barbeque on the Cliffs right  next to the Rugged Point Inn. I can truly say it had a spectacular view of the ocean.  One  of the key places to stop and should not miss on the Big Sur is the Julia Pfeiffer Burns  State park. While in there we took a quick photo of the famous McWay Falls as seen on  one of the slide photos in our blog. We headed to San Simeon, where we visited the  famous Hearst Castle.  We recommend to at least spend an entire day at the Hearst  Castle to take photos and enjoy the amazing views. While in San Simeon, we stayed at the  Morgan hotel which has an ocean view and this hotel offers complimentary breakfast with free wiFi. What our kids truly enjoy was the quick side trip to the Elephant seals of San  Simeon which was totally free of charge! And we had a brief morning hike from there to  the  Piedras Blancas Lighthouse.   We spent about a total of 4 days with this mini-vacation, and  we are very proud to say we stayed within our budget. Our hotel stay per day was  below $200 and some of the days fell into a weekend.        

Ragged Point Inn

solvang, ca

hearst castle

Few tips if you truly want to save money:

1. book ahead of time for your hotel. I used several sites online like booking.com; kayak;  hotels.com, expedia.com and trip advisor.

2. find a hotel that offers complimentary breakfast and has a small fridge

3. pack your water, snacks and lunches if you can. We packed some fruits to go like banana,  oranges, apples, and of course some granola bars or anything that is healthy and easy to  grab and go.

4. ask for more information of places to visit once you arrived at your hotel or you can  search for blogs such as this one to get better ideas for your next trip.

5. ask what kinds of activities you could do with your kids for free while visiting an area of  historical significance.

6. use a durable sack pack or light backpack when you travel. We love to hit the beach, so  we pack our beach towels, sunblock and flip flops.

7. Look for areas where you could get some groceries near your hotel.

8. if your car has an extra room or space; bring a cooler for your water and beverages

9. if you can find a hotel that has access to a washer and dryer, that would be the best since most of all would like to travel light.

Big Sur Hwy 1 www.bigsur