California

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• Blown away by Chicago - Chicago
• Haunted by Hemingway - Florida
• We have the keys to unlock Florida - Florida
• My Love Match with Las Vegas - Las Vegas
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• A Chorus of Angels - Los Angeles
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• The Stars Bite Back - Los Angeles
• Hotel of high fashion - Miami
• Miami Spice - Miami
• Alien Town: Roswell - New Mexico
• How the kids went Cajan - New Orleans
• Seta and the City - New York
• Glamour by the sea - Santa Barbara
• Celebrity Hotels - USA
• Escape to Sundance - Utah

CALIFORNIA HAS LONG BEEN known as lotus land. It is the place where wanderers, dreamers and misfits have come to enjoy life’s pleasures and evade its responsibilities amid some of the most seductive scenery in the world.

You could spend a lifetime here and not exhaust the possibilities. Alternatively, you could book a fly-drive holiday and cover the whole shebang in ten days or so.

And that’s really the challenge of a short holiday in California: how can you drift like a sybarite, yet still arrive at all the best destinations?

The answer is that you can’t. California is extremely large, and to take in the extremities - the Anza-Borrego desert near San Diego, the Lassen Volcanic National Park near the Oregon border, and Lake Tahoe by the Nevada border - involves an awful lot of driving.

But you can certainly make it to several of California’s highlights, while still finding time to whale watch, enjoy a mud bath and saunter across the Golden Gate Bridge. You just have to make some tough choices.

My top tip would be to avoid January and February altogether, since this is when Los Angeles is most likely to be drenched by torrential rain. You might not want to visit Death Valley in August, while Yosemite is less accessible in winter.

It’s also an idea to plan a road trip that begins and ends in Los Angeles (or San Francisco), then take a one-way flight back between the two cities.

San Francisco

With its steep streets, cable cars and Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco is America’s most European-type city.

Although Indian tribes have lived in the area for centuries and the Spanish established missions in the late 18th century, modern San Francisco really came into being after the Gold Rush of 1849.

Unless you’re a whizz at map reading and happy to negotiate bad traffic, exploring by foot or by bus is your best bet.

A good way to begin is by walking round some of the key historic sites, starting at Union Square and taking in Nob Hill and Chinatown (the biggest outside Asia). If you get tired, you can always take a tram.

For those who can withstand more, try walking up the Filbert steps, which climb past cottages and gardens, ending with an astonishing view of the bay.

If you are planning to spend a little longer there, try to book in advance to visit Alcatraz, the former prison island.

Wine Country: Sonoma Valley

An hour northeast of San Francisco, the wine country can be “done” in a day.

Begin the journey by crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and winding up through the gorgeous scenery of Marin County, with a possible stop in Mill Valley, the quintessential deluxe hippy town with its antique stores and quaint streets.

Then head for Sonoma, the birthplace of the California wine industry and home to the Buena Vista Winery and Sebastiani. Both operate tours.

Enjoy a picnic lunch in the plaza of Healdsburg, then wind past Geyserville and back down to Calistoga, stopping at Old Faithful, a 100ft jet of water that shoots up every 40 minutes.

Death Valley

One of the least hospitable places on earth, Death Valley acquired its name in 1849, when 40 families stumbled into it as they tried to reach the gold country in the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

Before they found a way out, one of the families had died and the others had turned their wagons into firewood so they could cook their oxen and stay alive.

Though winter or spring is a more pleasant time to visit, you can also venture here in summer, provided you stay in the shade during the day and hike through the dunes in the early morning or late afternoon.

Yosemite

The naturalist John Muir wrote that Yosemite had “the most songful streams in the world; the noblest forests, the loftiest granite domes, the deepest ice-sculptured canyons”.

This remains true - although if you visit at the height of summer or during a public holiday, the effect may be somewhat ruined by the crowds. Around four million visit the park annually. Book accommodation well in advance.

Pacific Coast Highway

You could easily devote three weeks to driving up California’s coastline. But that’s a different trip from the one outlined here.

Nevertheless, you should be sure to drive along at least one section of the Pacific Coast Highway.

One possibility is a day trip from LA to Santa Barbara. Self-consciously wealthy, Santa Barbara offers beautiful shops, many restaurants and a bay where you can hire sailboats or even take a whale-watching tour from June through September.

You could also connect with the Highway by driving south from San Francisco, stopping at Monterey and sampling part of the spectacular Big Sur coastline.

Los Angeles

Raymond Chandler called it “a big, hard-boiled city with no more personality than a paper cup” and if you visit only Hollywood, you’ll be inclined to agree. Though there has been a massive clean up, it remains down-at-heel, with tacky tourist shops and assorted hustlers.

The best advice is to go there in the evening and see a movie at one of the old cinemas, ideally The Egyptian. Then have a drink at an old Hollywood haunt such as Musso & Franks.

But there’s actually no need to visit Hollywood at all, and if you’re pressed for time there are higher priorities.

Disneyland

You will either want to go or not - but if you have children it will be a compulsory stop. To get there, take the I-5 freeway from LA for an hour or so, then follow the signs.

Opened in 1955, it has seen surprisingly little change as the years have passed.

A one-day ticket is $47 (£29) for ten-year- olds and older, $37 (£23) for children aged three to nine, and under-threes get in free.