Seattle to San Diego: Driving the Pacific Coast

Earlier this month I embarked on one of my most ambitious road trips to date. My friend Mike and I expanded on our previous adventures in the Pacific Northwest, and this time we drove the entire coastline from Seattle to San Diego over the course of two weeks. 

Covering over 6500 km we stuck to the coast highway with key stops in Seattle, Long Beach, Coos Bay, Eureka, San Francisco, San Jose, Morro Bay, Los Angeles, and San Diego. We then gunned it back to Canada through Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. All of this was made even more fun by taking Mike's new BMW 435i along for the journey. 

I'm still processing everything we saw and did, but I can't even begin to express how many iconic places and memorable experiences we had. As you might expect, it was a lot to absorb in only two weeks. We hiked down coastal cliffs, photographed Seattle's lights from the top of the Space Needle, and found ourselves drinking with musicians and playing a drunken U.S.A. vs. Canada game of pool at a dive bar on the Washington coast.

A photo posted by Luke Fandrich (@editingluke) on Sep 13, 2015 at 1:13pm PDT

We continued south and toured lighthouses in Oregon, put our arms around giant Redwoods near Eureka, drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and wandered the streets of San Francisco amid hectic Labor Day crowds. In Southern California we lived it up in a suite at the Hollywood Roosevelt in L.A. as a movie premiered at the Chinese Theatre right across the street. Further south still, we walked the deck of an aircraft carrier in San Diego harbor, and after all that (and so so so much more) we found ourselves on a beach in Coronado only 9 miles from Mexico. 

A photo posted by Luke Fandrich (@editingluke) on Sep 14, 2015 at 4:21pm PDT

With this trip alone I could release a series a photo books. I was averaging over 1000 images per day, and just looking at what I captured you'd be amazed that it all happened in merely two weeks. I can barely believe it and I was there. In any case, the result is going to be some amazing new photo sets in the months ahead. 

Instead of creating another photo series from scratch, the material from this trip will be used to expand on my existing Pacific Northwest and Roadside California series'. Also, if you missed it while it was happening, I shared a bunch of shots on my Instagram account. Follow along if you want a glimpse at what I'm working on before it ends up here. Stay tuned for some amazing content in the works!