For My Daughter’s 16th Birthday!

I’ve written about how an AMAZING idea for your child’s memorable birthday celebration is a trip! It’s an adventure that you can enjoy together- doing some once-in -a-lifetime things for a birthday he/she’ll never forget- trust me! I planned these for my daughters’ 16th birthdays, since that’s an extra special one (21st birthday would be cool too). I try to choose place as different from where I live (Pennsylvania) as possible. So somewhere WARM and near beaches is where we start our searches.

As we near September, I think of my birthday, but more so my gorgeous middle daughter, who will be 23 this year! For her 16th birthday, we kept it in the US so we didn’t have the hassle of getting her a passport. We decided on California, where I had only been a few times and only two cities- LA and San Francisco. I highly recommend southern California (if you don’t already live there!). There are so many great experiences to enjoy here.

When we made this choice, we decided the best way to see a lot of the state was to rent a car. The ride from San Diego to LA is only a little over 2 hours, which surprised me, in a good way! 

Arriving. We flew into John Wayne airport which is closer to San Diego, where we wanted to start the journey. (Remember to always have a valid ID when you’re going to rent a car. My license had literally just expired and I had yet to get the replacement ID…getting around this issue was a huge ordeal).

Staying. We used VRBO to start looking at places to stay well-ahead of time, and found the cutest little condo in the heart of San Diego where we stayed two nights- it was small, but had two bedrooms and 2 baths, and an outside patio with a great view. These are just so easy to use. They give you the passcode so no worrying about losing a key! If you look well-ahead of time you can find something really nice for like $200-$300/night, which I thought, for how notorious CA is for being crazy expensive, was pretty good. We stayed here and in a hotel in Agoura Hills. Only two locations for unpacking everything made the trip not too hectic. 

Itinerary!

Day One- San Diego Zoo. This is really almost a full day since there is so much to see. We got our tickets ahead of time. We went in the morning, ate lunch here and really saw everything, even a tiger being fed, which was so cool. When we got back in the afternoon we took a boat ride around the San Diego harbor. I don’t think people realize this is where the navy has a base, since it’s obviously surrounded by water. I LOVE the water and boating, so this was a lovely relaxing way to end the day.

Day Three- drive up the coast to Los Angeles. All along this route are beaches, so we stopped at Long Beach and Huntingdon beach to check them out.  It was the only time we actually got into our bathing suits and went to a beach, we obviously had to do it at least once. Pacific Ocean water is COLD, unlike our Jersey shores, so that wasn’t happening, although we dipped our toes in. Anywhere you stop along this route is beautiful; the Pacific Coast Highway is simply amazing. Driving around was really fun- like a road trip from home. She was excellent at navigation so it made it much easier for me too. What you MUST do in the LA area:

• The Hollywood sign. We of course had to see this, although it’s next to impossible to find the trail that leads up to it. We missed the main road, and got onto a very steep trail at one point. I fell and had a major scrape on my knee. So we never saw it up close, but were there! 
• Rodeo Drive. We had lunch in the heart of the world of LA’s rich and famous! I gave my daughter $100 so she could walk up the drive a bit and spend it on something, obviously small 🙂 
• Santa Monica Pier. Not far outside LA (depending on traffic- beware, it’s TERRIBLE there), you’ll find Santa Monica, which is a super cute town on its own, but is well-known for the famous pier. We rode the ferris wheel and got a great view of the area.

Day Four- her birthday! The night before, we arrived at our hotel in Agoura Hills. It had really cute restaurants, a beautiful pool and hot tub. So this was a day we stayed in and relaxed. We needed to start getting ready early anyway, for our special birthday dinner in Malibu!

The drive down to Malibu was, you could say, crazy. I mean that it was beautiful driving down through the canyons, but insanely steep and somewhat scary! I have a weird fear of driving too close to the edge of roads, so if you’re like me, this might scare you too (fyi the drive back to the hotel after dinner was also scary since it was dark- yikes)!

But WELL worth it. We went a little early and stopped at a winery (that weirdly enough I went to with my husband when visiting LA years before!). When it was time for dinner- WOW, how incredible was this restaurant. Geoffreys, right on the water in Malibu. geoffreysmalibu.com. It’s renowned for it’s location and food- and did not disappoint. We spared no expense on appetizers, birthday dessert, and I naturally had to get fresh oysters on the half shell. 

Unfortunately I booked our plane trip back for the next morning, which meant a 2-ish hour ride to the airport, way TOO early. I don’t suggest cutting any plane trips that close, but I probably got a good deal on it or something! Ha 🙂

I hope this was a birthday she remembers! It definitely was for me!