Hello all, been lurking around for a while and recently bought a cross check and plan to do some touring very soon. As mentioned in the title this will be my first tour, as it stands it will also be solo. I finish summer school in about three weeks and want to immediately hit the road so I can get back in time for the fall semester to start. I have about 20 days at my disposal and want to ride from Portland, to Astoria, then go down hw 101 until the San Francisco area. I've never done any kind of long distance cycling and just started getting into cycling.

What I'm really looking for is some advice on for the route, anything I need to pay special attention to or that I should go out of my way to see. Also maybe some route suggestions for california (particularily taking hw 1 to follow the coast or should I follow hw 101 to my destination). As far as gear I plan to travel really light ( probably similar to this. Suggestions for tents would be appreciated as well.

I plan to go about 1000 miles over 15 days (may have alternate routes if I find myself going slower or faster).

I also want to spend as little as possible on this trip, is stealth camping the majority of the time feasible along this route? Also I was considering bringing a video camera but am worried about the logistics of it, how do people go about charging electronics when on tour?

Taylor