I find Santa Monica very underwhelming and would anti-recommend. I liked the Getty a lot - the views are incredible.

You could spend a night in Laguna / Dana Point that coast area. I love the little french cafe in Laguna - forget the name, but even if you do a quick detour on your drive up the coast can be fun for a crepe or a pastry.

I don't know if the times work out where you can go tide pooling during the day (my recollection is winter is better for that but maybe I'm wrong) but we loved doing that in Malibu. Can also do near the Montage in Laguna.

I think your time sounds reasonable. We did a one week trip a couple of years ago to LA (4 nights) and San Diego (3 nights). We flew Southwest non-stop from BWI into LA and out of San Diego. We did not go to Disney. We really enjoyed Universal Studios, Santa Monica and the San Diego Zoo.

Definitely fly dca or iad to lax.

Also, salt and straw ice cream. Oh and we went to Malibu one day and hiked and then ate at Malibu farm on the pier afterward.

For food we had great stuff. Donuts (watch Donut King documentary beforehand), in and out burger, tacos, sugar fish sushi, and din tai Fung for awesome Taiwanese dumplings.

We just did a week in LA with teens this summer.

Stayed in MDRey. Did Santa Monica and Venice beach, la Brea tar pits, Petersen museum, old Hollywood farmers market, Griffith observatory, WB studio tour, and Madame Toussauds (highlight!). Also the Getty but teens found it pretty boring.

We did a 10 day trip once, in/out of LA. Drove straight to Anaheim for two nights at the HoJos across from Disney then drove to SD where we rented a house in PB for a week. Each day a little beach time including surfing lessons and sand castle building lesson, and many days another activity such as Zoo, Safari Park, Belmont Park for arcade games, Science museum on a rainy day, LaJolla kayaking in caves, Torrey Pines hike (on the drive down to SD) ...think those were the highlights. Have to get Baked Bear ice cream sandwiches in PB..try to rent a house with boogie boards or beach chairs.

Anonymous wrote:We did California in August with 9 and 12 year old. (We started in San Fran and ended in LA, so doesn't totally match your trip, though)

Loved Warner Brothers Studio tour - it was really interesting, and I wish we had left more time for the self-guided part at the end. Definitely recommend it.

I would definitely do at least one night, maybe two, at a beach town - Pismo Beach, Santa Monica, something like that. My kids *loved* surfing lessons.

We flew out of LAX. It was fine - probably your only option for a direct flight to the DC area.

OP here. We would consider San Fran if we have time but based on the other CA post it would seem like it’s too hard to do southern and northern in the same trip?

San Diego also has nonstop flights to the DC area and it’s a smaller easier airport to deal with (esp if you have a rental car).

We did California in August with 9 and 12 year old. (We started in San Fran and ended in LA, so doesn't totally match your trip, though)

Loved Warner Brothers Studio tour - it was really interesting, and I wish we had left more time for the self-guided part at the end. Definitely recommend it.

I would definitely do at least one night, maybe two, at a beach town - Pismo Beach, Santa Monica, something like that. My kids *loved* surfing lessons.

We flew out of LAX. It was fine - probably your only option for a direct flight to the DC area.

We want to travel next June with our kids to Disneyland in CA. We plan to go for about a week and a half, with probably 3 full days at Disney. What suggestions do you have for other things we should do for the rest of our vacation? Kids will be 14 and 11. Should we go to San Diego? Santa Barbara? Santa Monica? What is reasonable for this length trip, and where should we fly in/out of?

TIA.