Hiring a car and driving the Pacific Coast Highway in California is fantastic; something that you wouldn’t want to do without a night or two along the way. We spent 4 nights making our way to Monterey from Santa Monica and then a further 2 nights driving back.

On the way back, we stayed at an excellent resort in Pismo Beach, located half way between Monterey and Santa Monica. Dolphin Bay Resort is about 4kms north of the main centre of Pismo Beach. It was apartment living with a full kitchen which made it easy to make our own meals and a washing machine/dryer which was great considering the bag was starting to fill up with laundry.

The views from the resort were spectacular and laying by the pool was very restful. Such a lovely place to stay. Wished we could have stayed a few more nights.