La Jolla, Venice beach, Santa Monica pier, the Brothers off the coast of San Luis Obisbo, Hearst Castle, Big Sur, Monterey Bay and the Aquarium, may be surfing shots at Manresa Beach or the Hook up in Santa Cruz, a detour to Henry Coe state park to shoot some redwoods and look for banana slugs, back to highway 1 to Pigeon Point Lighthouse, then Half Moon Bay, Pacifica, and across Devil's Slide into San Francisco.
Muir Woods is dangerous. Those apes will throw poop at you...
Only if you're standing in front of the compost bin. Those apes are quite fastidious.
Oh, and the scenery there is awesome. And Monterey Bay is wildlife paradise. The coastal roads are dangerous for a photographer who's driving. SO hard to pay attention to the road with dropdead gorgeous views appearing around every curve! And if you're not driving, it's surprisingly easy to irritate the driver by yelling "pull over" every few minutes on a narrow windy road with no shoulder. Not that I know that from experience or anything. Loved Half Moon Bay, too, and we found wild parrots in San Francisco. All two of them ;-) And tourists on a zip wire. It does make it easier to shoot tourists when you put them on a wire in the sky. But they were moving, so it wasn't like sitting ducks. There was still an element of skill involved.
Good thing my daughter moved to the San Francisco area so I get to visit once in awhile. And Napa's not that far north, and there's Point Reyes, and, and, and ...
If you buy anything, save your receipts and keep track with respect to your tax free allowance. Canada Customs is all bitchy these days. With the low US dollar and cross-border shopping their panties are all twisted up.
ETA.... It's in your best interest to buy as much as you can in the US. Just about everything there is half price compared to in Canada.
