Originally Posted by
tinrobot
If you're starting in San Diego, another option would be to take Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner up to San Luis Obispo and ride through wine country, then down to Santa Barbara and back along the coast.
I've been investigating what it would take to ride Amtrak to some nice starting point in California with bike and camping gear. Some Amtrak lines and/or stations don't have checked baggage service. Baggage rules allow bikes as walk-ons onto trains that have bike storage in the passenger cars, but the bike counts as one of the 2 carry-on bags you're allowed to bring. Even if there is no bike rack on board, you're allowed to bring a small folding bike as carry-on baggage in lieu of 1 carry-on, so you'd have to pack all of the clothing, sleeping, cooking, and shelter gear into one bag that meets the maximum size limit. It's very difficult to meet the baggage rules with a bike and camping gear as carry-ons, especially in the Pacific Surfliner route which has a smaller carry-on luggage size limit (28x22x11") than Amtrak in general (28x22x14"). What I'm saying is you have to plan carefully for a bike-camping trip where you use Amtrak for part of the tour.