Where do you like to stay when you tour a state?
 

I'm thinking about a bike tour of Central/Southern CA (San Francisco area to San Diego). I'm not sure about where to stay, though. Do you prefer camping, hostels, or hotels? Why?

I prefer camping to hotels and hotels to hostels.

I don't know what it is about hostels in particular that I don't like. I think they smell a bit too much like airplanes - kind of a musty, unkept smell. Hard to put it into words.

Hotels are okay especially if it's going to dump buckets of rain. Nothing worse than packing a wet tent and carrying it around all day only to unpack a wet tent and sleep in it at night. Plus it's nice to get a shower and see what's happening in the world once in a while.

Camping is still the best. Outside, fresh air ... all that stuff. I tend to try and stay in orgainized campground with showers if I can. I tend to get more saddle sores if I don't get the salt off me on a regular basis. I did find during a tour of the Midwest in 2003 that most of the state parks in Missouri and Iowa have showers. In Colorado most of them don't even have water! It was ever so civilized.

Stuart Black

If you are running the coast - why not do a little of both camping and hostels. Cal state parks have great hiker/biker campsites - often set off from loud car campers - and you really just can't beat hostels like Pigeon Point for unsurpassed beauty. Usually when I'm inside, I stay up later talking to folks and get up later the next morning - no big deal. Hotels on the California coast tend to put a big dent into your wallet - especially during touring season. If you are going all the way to San Diego - consider doing Mulholland Drive and the mountains around L.A. rather than going thru. Or you can cut east along the Cuyama valley on Hwy 166.

Best - J

buy the book bicycling the pacific coast it is great..... maps out the whole tour and gives great places to camp.

yea, not much of a decision on your route, those hiker biker sites are great. me, i prefer to camp, primarily because i aint made of money, and if i were i would still find many better ways to spend 60 bucks then on a lousy hotel.

Camping with a hotel once a week or so. (Or at least a commerical campground...what a luxery a hot shower can be...)

My number one choice is camping. My only complaint is the time it takes to break camp, but that will improve considerably as I get more and more organized during the course of the tour. In addition to saving large sums of money, it provides a completely different type of experience, combining the outdoors with meeting more interesting kinds of people. As I break camp, the fresh air puts me in a great mood as I begin my cycling day.

Camping adds to the weight and bulk you need to carry, but this is far outweighed by the great experience and the tremendous cost savings.

Hostels are of course cheap, but like cyccommute, they tend to be "musty, unkempt" places. I will only sleep in my sleeping bag on top of the covers. I've stayed in "bunkhouses," however, that had a bed consisting of only a rubber pad on top of wood. In those types of accommodations, I also use my sleeping pad. Even if you don't camp, I suggest that you still bring a sleeping bag and pad, so you can stay comfortably in a "bunkhouse."

On long tours, I try to stay in motels no more than twice a week. After days of touring and camping, even a cheap but clean motel makes me feel like a king. Hot shower, TV, clean soft bed, etc., all contribute to getting refreshed and rejuvenated for more cycling and camping. The worst part, of course, is the high cost, especially in metro areas, or the entire northeast where I live. Even in VA on the TransAmerica trail, I could not find a motel for less than $50, which is expensive by touring standards.