California road trip

 

I’m back with a huge post about my California road trip that I did with my bestie Maria. Prepare for a picture overload! ;D
Growing up watching mostly American movies and shows made me quite obsessed with all things Californian/ American. It represented a sort of idealistic dream, so I’ve always wanted to go there and see all those places. To just chill on the beaches with that special vibe from the movies, surfers in the background…

However, nothing can live up to that fake image in our heads and some things weren’t as I expected. But I’d still say it was the best trip of my life and I can’t wait to go back!

Before I get to the pictures and more into details of the trip, I wanted to hear from you. Please let me know how you’re doing during the quarantine and what it’s like in your country. This post took me forever to put together and was honestly quite difficult to work on while being on lock-down. It was possibly the best time of my life and now might be one of the worst. Especially as I should have been back to US next week (New York and Miami). So looking back to all these pictures makes me feel worse it’s not happening…

San Francisco

First stop of our trip was San Francisco.  The first night of our trip started a bit crazy straight away. We thought we’re staying in a central location with a lot of tourists and near the main shopping streets etc, but turned out we probably chose the worst street possible. As we arrived late at night, there were many homeless people around and it felt pretty unsafe. Same night the next street from our hotel was mostly taped off by the police as someone had just died there! Everything seemed worse as we haven’t slept for 24 hours and barely had any food.

However, it was all upwards from there – the world seems quite different in bright sunshine after you’ve had rest and something to eat. Nothing seemed that menacing anymore and we were too excited by everything else to come. I absolutely loved the area with all the Victorian houses (and even if it’s so much more expensive we should have done more research and tried to stay there, as that was what San Francisco always seemed like to me). Also all the hills were even more intense than I thought and a really good exercise ;D

Highway One Road trip

After a few days in San Francisco we rented a car to drive down the coast on Route 1. It was really breathtaking and amazing drive and I’d love to do it again and stop more at different points. This time we spent the night in Monterey by the ocean and continued the drive to Santa Barbara. We had made a special soundtrack for this as well, driving by the coast with Lana Del Rey’s “Ride” etc. blasting was something else!

Santa Barbara

We stayed in Santa Barbara for a night too. We wondered around all the crazy huge mansions while sun was setting and it was another special day.

Los Angeles

From Santa Barbara we actually drove past LA to San Diego, but I don’t have any digital pictures from those few days. We literally just chilled on the beach there and went to bars in the evening, which was perfect. I do have some film pictures from there, so you can see it in the next blog post.

We stayed in LA for around a week, but for some reason I wasn’t taking pictures there really, though I did film a lot on my phone for instagram stories. I absolutely loved LA and would love to come back there to stay for a few weeks at least/ a month and organize many shoots. It was as inspiring as I thought it would be.

Universal Studios – Harry Potter World

One of the BEST and most amazing days of the whole trip was when we went to Universal Studios. Honestly would pay that price and go again and again. If you’ve followed me for awhile, you probably know that I’m obsessed with Harry Potter and how much I love it still. Going to Harry Potter World was one of the biggest reasons for this whole trip for me and it didn’t disappoint. I was just wandering around completely in awe and like in a dream, I didn’t think it would look so huge and real. And inside the castle (to queue for the main ride) was so realistically done and amazing too.

Universal Studio rides

The rest of the Universal Studios was such a great experience as well. Me and Maria were just running around laughing like kids (only….. tipsy ;DD). We managed to try every ride, some of them even 8 times or so! As we would run right back to the end of the shortest queue and do it again ;D

It was super hot that day, so cold beer from MOE’S was very much appreciated. ;D

Warner Bros. Studios

Another day we went to Warner Bros. Studios tour as well and I would definitely recommend that too. It was a very different approach to the Universal Studios tour, they let you walk around and be on actual sets. It felt a lot more personal and up close. While Universal Studios keep you in a little train which you can never get off or get anywhere close to actual filming sets. (Though it has some super entertaining “special effects” showcases).
I didn’t take as many digital camera pictures as everything happens so quickly in the Warner Bros. tour. It’s also not as interesting to look at the pictures without the actual interesting stories the guides tell you. But they have some great exhibits from movies with props and costumes. Of course they had a lot of Harry Potter props, DC costumes, Tim Burton sets. I especially loved the miniature Corpse Bride scenes that looked literally like it was in the film. Such attention to detail!

And of course it wouldn’t have been complete without Friends. Most entertaining part was the actual Central Perk set where they get people to act as extras and a few of you can actually be in a scene with Phoebe. They show it on the TV as if you were in it, which was a lot of fun. Maria volunteered for that. ;D

I CANNOT WAIT to be back! Let me know what I should see next time!