Classic Highway 1

Ten nights and under 450 miles, San Francisco to Los Angeles down Highway 1. This is the short way into a California road trip, and the cheapest fortnight-adjacent trip they sell. Flights, car and hotels come together from the UK with a road book for the route.

Three nights in San Francisco start it, enough for the cable cars, Alcatraz, Lombard Street and Chinatown before the car arrives. Then two nights at Carmel-by-the-Sea, with the 17-Mile Drive past Pebble Beach, the Monterey aquarium along the bay and the cypress headland at Point Lobos.

The Big Sur day is the centrepiece: a hundred miles of cliff road with Hearst Castle above it, then Cambria, Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo at the southern end, with the Central Coast wine region a short detour inland. Santa Barbara follows, and three nights in Los Angeles finish the trip, covering Santa Monica and Venice, Hollywood and Rodeo Drive, with Universal and Warner Brothers both offering studio tours.

Five stops across ten nights, three of them lasting two nights or three, and only four driving days in the whole trip. That is the proposition: the famous road, the two cities at either end, and nothing else competing for your attention. The itinerary is bespoke, so nights can be added at either end or stops dropped, and departures are arranged around your dates. It suits a first American road trip, or anyone with ten nights rather than fourteen who would rather do one coast well than three states badly.