Talyssa Travels

Last weekend a friend and I decided to go to California and discover 3 of the beautiful National Parks in this state.

Where did we go?
Sequoia National Park, Kings Canyon National Park and the famous Yosemite National Park!

Here is a little itinerary of our trip.

Day 1 – San Jose & Santa Cruz

We arrived at San Jose airport on Friday, we stayed there in the morning and then went to Santa Cruz, we enjoyed walking on the wharf and the beach boardwalk. Finally we stopped at Monterey Bay and did the 17-Mile Drive, I had already done the drive early August but my friend was discovering it for the first time!

In the evening we stopped in the city of Fresno to sleep at Hotel Piccadilly which is not far from Sequoia National Park.

Day 2 – Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park

We started our journey with Sequoia National Park. I had never seen trees this big, they were very tall and the width was impressive! We had a car, however we needed to take a shuttle to access some viewpoints since it was hard to park in some areas.

We adventured ourselves through the park until we found the entrance to Kings Canyon National Park!

This park had sensational viewpoints. You can easily drive up the mountains and leave your car to continue at foot, there are easy, medium and « hard » hikes to do. We had the opportunity to go to the panoramic trail and have an incredible view on Hume Lake.

In the evening we watched the sunset over the hill before heading to the next hotel near Yosemite. We stayed at Yosemite Inn, only an hour away from the park and they had a complimentary breakfast ready in the morning.

Day 3 – Yosemite National Park

On the third day started our journey to Yosemite, from the entrance to the Visitor Center in the center of the park you have at least an hour drive but the views are amazing, you can easily stop along the road to catch some fresh air and great pictures.

Our first stop in the park was Lower Yosemite Falls trail, once arrived we couldn’t resist! We hiked the rocks and saw the Falls, of coursed we swam and took our lucky pictures. The water was freezing but the experience was 100% worth it.

Mirror lake was our second stop, you have to take the shuttle to go there, after a 30min walk you will stand between the mountains and the lake. Our final stop was Tunnel view where we had another wonderful sunset.

Day 4 – San Jose

Our fourth and last day was spent in San Jose, we enjoyed a well deserved chill day before heading back to New York!

We were amazed by all the landscapes we had seen during our weekend. I can only highly recommend to go there, these 3 parks were on the top of my list!