West Coast Road Trip From Seattle to Austin

Only 24 hours after my adventures on the Olympic Peninsula, I was back on the road for a casual 2,700-mile drive from Seattle, Washington to Austin, Texas!

Given the year we were having in 2020 and the fact that I’d already been missing my friends and family a ton before we were all in lockdown for the better part of a year, I decided that it was time to move back home to Texas after three and a half years in the Pacific Northwest (PNW).

Despite how much I loved the PNW, I knew it was time for me to head home, realizing that I could go back to visit any time.

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Our Seattle to Austin Road Trip

My main motivation for undertaking the long road trip from Seattle to Austin was my dog, Misha, who was too big to take on a plane.

So my mom and I loaded up my car with a couple of bags, Misha, and my cat, Maggie, and we were off!

Note that we booked all of our lodging the day of for this trip, after we had a good sense of where we were going to be stopping for the evening.

For the most part, we weren’t staying anywhere glamorous. Our main criteria was that they allowed pets, and we tried to keep the price around $100 a night if we could, given we would only be there for a few hours to sleep.

A Broad Recommendation: Hotels & Stays is a great resource for finding the best hotels near your favorite destinations, like Seattle, San Francisco, Austin, and more!

Washington

We left my apartment around 8 pm on Friday after the movers came for my stuff, and we made it a short 45 minutes to Tacoma, Washington that night. The movers packed up my bed and couch, so we figured we would drive just enough to get a head start in the morning.

The next morning, we had a bit of a scare when we realized that Maggie was nowhere to be found! I was panicking that I’d lost my cat on the very first day of our trip, when my mom thought to pull the mattress off the bed. Of course, Maggie had somehow figured out how to get into the box frame under the bed and was hiding out under there.

Oregon

Once that was resolved, we stopped for coffee, then headed out of Washington toward the Oregon coast.

We decided that while driving through Oregon, we’d stay along the coast, since the drive is absolutely gorgeous. Then, we’d take a more direct route once we got to California to save time, though we wished we could’ve driven down the coast the entire time.

Tillamook, Oregon

Our first stop was a lunch break in Tillamook, Oregon about three and a half hours away. You may recognize this name even if you’ve never been to Oregon because Tillamook is famous for its cheese and ice cream.

The Tillamook Cheese Factory that we were hoping to stop at was closed due to COVID-19, so we stopped at The Blue Heron French Cheese Company instead. And, it turned out to be one of our favorite spots of the trip!

The restaurant was a little farm house with a large shop full of all the sweets and snacks you could ever think of. They also had a ton of local goods for sale, which obviously included a nice cheese selection, as well as many specialty items.

We ended up buying some huckleberry licorice, which was bright purple, as well as some black licorice caramels. These became our favorite treats and thankfully, lasted most of the trip.

For lunch, we both ordered the Tilly Grilly, a classic grilled cheese sandwich made with Tillamook Medium Cheddar cheese. And, they were to die for!

We took our sandwiches outside to eat at the picnic tables, happy to get some fresh air, and we saw that there was also a petting zoo with various animals.

Though we didn’t participate, there were some chickens and a peacock walking around our table while we ate. It was very entertaining watching my dog meet her first peacock!

Coos Bay, Oregon

After lunch, we continued down the coast, and I showed my mom a couple of options for our overnight stay. The first was Florence, Oregon, which I’d read about in another blog and was excited to visit because of its sea lion cave.

The second option was an extra couple of hours away in Coos Bay, Oregon. When I told her the name, her face lit up. Unbeknownst to me, Coos Bay is where her running inspiration, Steve Prefontaine, was from.

Prefontaine was an Olympian in 1972, and she had a poster of him with one of his famous quotes, “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.”, hanging in our garage growing up.

Clearly, this resulted in us driving a little more to get to Coos Bay that night. It was challenging to get a hotel here because we were driving through the forest most of the afternoon and kept loosing cell phone service.

Plus, it’s such a small town that our first options were sold out. We ended up staying at a Motel 6, but we made up for it with a really nice dinner when we got there.

For dinner, we ate at Restaurant O and made reservations beforehand so we could get a table with the COVID restrictions they had in place. We had a delicious meal of scallops and mixed vegetables. After all the cheese earlier in the day, we were definitely craving something healthy!

In the morning, we got breakfast at a diner, and as we drove over, my mom started shouting, “there he is!”. Mind you, Steve Prefontaine died years ago, so I was a bit perplexed until I looked over and saw the huge wall painting of him.

We obviously had to stop for some photos here.

After our pitstop, we walked around the boardwalk and enjoyed the gorgeous views before getting back on the road.

California

Our entire trip was organized around meeting up with family and friends along the way, which really helped to keep us on track.

Berkeley, California

So, we continued on our drive, heading toward Berkeley, California, where we were planning to meet up with my friends, Sarah and James. We arrived in Berkeley, checked into our hotel, and had a late dinner with my friends.

That night, we were planning out the next day when I discovered that my mom had never been to San Francisco! We were already in for a long drive to Riverside, California to meet up with her brother, my Uncle Ray, but I decided that a stop in San Francisco was a must!

San Francisco, California

So, the next morning, we took an hour or so detour to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge and to visit the Painted Ladies houses at Alamo Square Park, also known as the house from the TV show Full House to us 90s kids! And, it was so worth the extra drive time.

Riverside, California

Unfortunately, our day then took a bit of a turn, as we realized the wild fires were really starting to pick up across the state. When we researched a bit more, we learned that if we’d taken the fastest route rather than sticking to the Oregon coast the day before, we would’ve been driving right through the wild fires. They’d been bad near Berkeley as well, so we were being extra aware and careful while driving.

As we got closer to Riverside, it was harder and harder to avoid, and we ended up stuck in traffic, as the thick smoke was staggering. We couldn’t see the fires themselves, just dark clouds of smoke in the distance.

My Uncle Ray had to drive past actual flames to come meet us. Like me, he lives alone and had been in lockdown for almost a year, so he was clearly excited to see us!

He got to the hotel only 15 minutes or so after we did, and we were originally planning to go somewhere to get dinner but ended up just staying in the room talking, drinking and eating various snacks from the car throughout the night.

Uncle Ray had never met my dog before, and Misha usually takes a little while to warm up to men, but they were instantly best friends and had so much love for each other.

We decided that we’d leave after lunch the next day, so we could get a little more time with Uncle Ray.

In the morning, we drove about 15 minutes from our hotel to hike Mt. Rubidoux.

The trail itself is supposed to be for any skill level, but it was harder than expected, and we didn’t go all the way to the top because of the wind. Despite stopping a little early, the views of the town were still incredible.

When we got back, we grabbed sandwiches from The Upper Crust Sandwich Shoppe, then showered and changed. It was sadly time to say goodbye and get back on the road onwards to Phoenix, Arizona.

Arizona

Once we left California, we made much better time because the roads were pretty flat and speed limits were higher heading directly east toward Texas.

When I was looking for a place to stay in Phoenix, I found a deal for a 4 star hotel, The Clarendon, which was a huge upgrade compared to the other nights of our road trip.

We were exhausted from being on the road for nearly a week, so we decided to “splurge” and get a suite here. The hotel has a Latin fusion restaurant, Fuego Bistro, on site, so we decided to sit on the patio and enjoy our meal before heading back to our cozy room.

The hotel also has a rooftop sky deck with skyline views of Phoenix, but we were pretty wiped out and just wanted to get some rest.

New Mexico

The next day, we were headed to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where one of my best friends from college lives.

We planned on leaving late, but Maggie disappeared again, and we again turned the room inside out looking for her. Finally, I pulled the couch away from the wall and discovered she’d somehow gotten herself into the lining of the couch and was hiding again.

When we finally got her into her carrier and got back on the road, we stopped for some salads, then started driving to Las Cruces.

Unfortunately, we made a pretty big error forgetting that we’d be changing time zones. After a short stop for gas at some point, we finally noticed that our arrival time changed from 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm. And now, we were running against time, which ruined our dinner plans a bit.

Las Cruces has a ton of really wonderful Mexican food, but due to COVID, a lot of restaurants closed by 8 pm, and we weren’t going to make it.

The only thing that was open to 10 pm was the local Chili’s. This was fine, since we were really going to see my friends, but some authentic Mexican food would’ve been nice!

Despite our late arrival, we still got to spend two hours catching up, which was really wonderful, since it’d been years since we’d seen each other.

Texas

In the morning, we were off once again, headed to Fredericksburg, Texas. Even though we were only an hour and a half away from Austin, we’d already driven about eight hours, so we decided to stop for the day—plus, my furniture wouldn’t be ready for us until the following day anyway.

We decided to have dinner at a restaurant on Main St., though we honestly almost left because of how lax they were around COVID-19 restrictions. The hostess wasn’t even wearing a mask!

We only stayed because they had a separate area with just four tables and only one of those other tables was occupied—and, our waiter luckily was wearing a mask.

After dinner, we spent some time back in the room with my animals, excited to get to Austin the next day to move into my new house! I bought a house in Austin before I moved and had never seen it in person before, so I was super excited to get home.

A Successful Seattle to Austin Road Trip

All in all, we had a very successful road trip from Seattle to Austin over the course of one week, and the drive itself was actually pretty great! We drove between 400 and 500 miles each day, which was never more than eight or nine hours, during which we took in shifts. And, it was great to be back in Texas close to family and friends!

If you’re interested in driving down the west coast, I highly recommend it! I’ll definitely do it again someday—but maybe without my cat next time, haha.

XOXO Candace at Travel A-Broads