Betsy's California Travel Blog

To help me provide more things that are useful for you, I'd like to know more about you. I live in San Jose, CA when I'm not out visiting places in the rest of the state.

Where do you live?

San Francisco Bay Area | Los Angeles Area | San Diego Area | Somewhere else in California | Western U.S. (west of the Rockies) | Somewhere else in the U.S. | Canada | Europe | Asia | Somewhere else in the World

See where other readers live

Weekend getaways seem to become more popular every year. Tell us a little more about how you plan yours.

How often do you go on a weekend getaway?

• Once a month
• Once every couple of months
• 3 to 4 times per year
• 1 to 2 times per year
• Once a year
• Once in a blue moon

See how often others go.

How many days you NORMALLY spend on a weekend getaway?

• 2 days: Saturday morning through Sunday night
• 2 1/2 days: Friday night through Sunday night
• 3 days: Saturday and Sunday plus one extra day
• 4 days: Saturday and Sunday plus two extra days

See how many days others spend.

How far in advance do you start planning your weekend getaway?

• One week or less
• 1 to 2 weeks
• 3 weeks to a month
• More than a month

See how far in advance others plan.

My ideas about travel have changed over the years. Before I became a travel writer, I was content to see the "standard" sights in a place, the ones my friends, neighbors or a guidebook said I should go to. It was fun, but after a while, I wanted more. Nowadays, I'd rather have a glass of wine with the locals at Stall #326 in the Los Angeles Farmers Market or strike up a conversation with a local character while waiting for a table at San Francisco’s Pacific Cafe than ride the Wine Train or take a bus tour of the local sights.

Judging from Internet search data, I concluded that you’re more interested in the sights you’ve always heard about than the ones you haven’t, but it occurs to me that I might be wrong.

Tell me, what kind of tourist are you?

• I want to see the famous sights. That's all.
• I want to see the top spots. I might be interested in a few less-known spots, too.
• I want to learn what a place is really like. I don't care if my friends say: "I can't believe you didn't go to (Fisherman’s Wharf, Sea World or wherever)!" when I get home.
• View Results

Southwest Vacations is offering a good deal for Disneyland visitors, good for travel between now and December 19. If you book a flight and hotel package through them, with a 3-day or longer Disneyland ticket and four or more nights in a hotel, you get $50 off and a FREE character breakfast. Five-day advance purchase is required and you need to buy before September 4, so reserve right away.

What difference does the kind of oak a wine is aged in make? After all, wood is wood, isn't it? By the time you finish the informative and entertaining tour at one of our favorite Napa wineries, you'll know the answer.

Located just outside of downtown Napa, Del Dotto is a small winery, producing only 5,000 cases a year, and their tour is as unique as the art work in their gallery. There's no mindless standing at a bar here while someone pours a few ounces of something white, pink or red for you to sip. At Del Dotto, you go into the caves and taste from the barrel. It's an experience you won't soon forget.

Napa Valley is the place most people think of first when they think of "Wine Country," but many scenes in Bottle Shock were actually filmed in more laid-back Sonoma County, where the pace is a bit slower and wineries are less tarted up.

If you're looking for a more relaxing Wine Country experience, try a ramble through Sonoma County, where you can sample California's agricultural bounty, see historic sites and taste some outstanding wines, all with the intimacy of a ride in the country.

Have you seen the new film Bottle Shock? It tells the story of the now-famous event in 1976, when American wines grabbed world attention by besting their French counterparts in a blind tasting. While the filmmakers took a few liberties with location (the town of Sonoma stands in for both Napa and Paris, in different scenes of course) and simplified the story, it's a fun insight into what the wine industry was like in its infancy, when a winemaker was shocked that someone would offer to pay for wine tasting.

Fast forward to 2008 and you'll have to make a reservation and pay $40 per person to taste wines at Chateau Montelena, the winery whose story is featured in the film. A French company, Domaines Reybier has just purchased the historic winery, but Bo Barrett (who figures heavily in the film) is still the head winemaker.

If you want to know more about the reality of the "Judgement at Paris" and those who did and didn't make it into the film, the San Francisco Chronicle has a good overview.

Time's running out, but if you act quickly, there's still time for a last summer fling. If you live in Northern California, won't have to travel far to Lake Tahoe, a great place for a quick weekend getaway before school starts.

Now that our readers have spoken, I'm going to weigh on this topic. People clearly like some of the state's most-visited places and those locales have justly earned their reputations. However, when California travel is your job, it's the unexpected pleasures that stand out. Their rank may change depending on where I've been most recently or what season it is, but my favorite places to go in California are Catalina Island, anywhere east of the Sierras along Highway 395, Lake County and the tiny but charming towns of Cayucos and Occidental.

I'd love to discover more, so don't be shy. Just click "Comments" below and tell us about your favorite California spot.

In another set of polls, the results mentioned in the previous post come out different. When we asked readers to rate places to go in California on a scale from "Yuck!" to "Awesome!", places that garnered the highest percentage of awesome votes include Cambria, Wine County, Morro Bay and Big Sur.

If you're wondering how other places fare, you'll find a rating poll on many of our articles.