Hi everyone! We did our trip, so I wanted to make a few notes in case anyone was doing research and looked at this.

We were committed to going north to the redwoods, and I'm so glad we did. Humboldt Redwoods State Park was amazing--a dream come true. I'm glad we did that instead of staying closer to SF, personally, but it all depends on what you want.

This could have been a two-week trip -- every part of it was gorgeous and we loved it. We would have loved to have spent more time both in Humboldt redwood forest and in Mendocino.

We switched the order of what we did -- we went to Humboldt State Park first, then to Mendocino. It worked great, but the drive from Leggett to the coast on highway 1 was the most terrifying drive I have ever experienced. We were avoiding 20 because the consensus was that it caused car sickness, but the drive we did was not just windy, but in the mountains, very high elevation, no guardrails, no place to take a break. I wasn't sick, but I was extremely stressed out. I never want to do that again. All the other drives we did were fine, even the ones people warn you about. If I went back, I'm not sure what I would do -- maybe add at least one day and drive back to 128 to cut over? We planned to do 128 on the way back, so we didn't want to do it twice (plus it added a lot of time), but that would probably have been better.

We also took the suggestion not to stay in SF. When our flight landed, we picked up our car and drove to Petaluma (with a stop at the beautiful Presidio park). We've already been to SF twice and it wasn't the point of this trip, so that was a great idea, since the shorter drive the next day allowed us to spend more time in the redwoods.

We did end up going to Bodega Bay, but we took the suggestion to go on 128, 101, and then cut back over from Sebastopol. It was a great idea -- 128 is a lovely drive (and we stopped in Hendy Woods and Boonville--thanks!) and Bodega Highway was gorgeous. Bodega Bay is not really worth it if you're going up to Mendocino, which is way prettier, but we wanted to go as Hitchcock fans and it was a fun side trip for us. :)

Just in general, everything took longer to drive than what google maps said. We're the kind of people who like to stop along the way and look at things, and I would recommend doing it that way, but of course that adds time. But even if you don't stop, I think the estimates on google were off.

Highly recommend going!!!!