Seattle to San Francisco

Fourteen nights from Seattle to San Francisco, down the coast of three states, and the only one of their trips that includes Crater Lake. Flights, car and hotels are arranged together from the UK with a road book to drive it from.

Two nights in Seattle open it, then Olympic National Park, where the night is spent at Lake Quinault inside the rain forest, with Rialto Beach and the Roosevelt elk nearby. Mount Rainier follows, then the Columbia River Gorge and Multnomah Falls on the way to two nights in Portland.

The Oregon coast comes next, starting at Cannon Beach and Ecola State Park and running south on Highway 101 past the sea stacks and lighthouses. Then the route turns inland for Crater Lake, a flooded volcanic caldera of a blue that photographs badly and looks unreal in person, before dropping into the California redwoods. Sonoma and the Golden Gate bring you into two nights in San Francisco to finish, with Alcatraz, the cable cars and Coit Tower.

Around 1,400 miles over a fortnight, which is unhurried for the distance covered, and most of the stops run to two nights. Worth knowing that Crater Lake and the Hurricane Ridge road are both snowbound for much of the year, so the time of year matters more on this route than on their southern ones and is worth raising when you enquire. The itinerary is bespoke, with nights addable and stops removable, and departures are arranged around your dates. It suits anyone who wants rain forest, volcano and redwoods in the same fortnight, finishing somewhere with good restaurants.