San Francisco to Santa Cruz: routes & drive times

This is the route most people take, and in a car it is a 45-minute run over the hill. In a 35-to-40-foot motorhome it asks more of you. From the city you take Highway 280 south down the Peninsula, pick up Highway 85, then join Highway 17 near Los Gatos and start climbing.

The summit is Patchen Pass at about 1,808 feet, and the climb touches grades around 10 percent on some ramps. The whole highway is only about 26 miles, but it is four lanes with sharp curves, tight shoulders, and no median barrier through some stretches. There is a bend a touch more than 180 degrees that locals call Big Moody Curve, bracketed by two more near-90-degree turns, and enough crash history that the road has been nicknamed Killer 17 for decades. None of that should scare you off, but it should change how you drive it.

Going up, you will lose speed and that is fine. Drop a gear, stay right, and let the cars go around. Going down the Santa Cruz side is where rigs get into trouble. Do not hold your speed with the brake pedal the whole way down or you will cook your brakes and lose them when you actually need them. Gear down before the descent, let the engine and transmission do the slowing, and use the brakes in firm taps, not a constant drag. If you tow, this matters double.

• On the climb between Granite Creek Road and the county line, Caltrans runs a free Freeway Service Patrol that helps disabled vehicles with a flat, a jump, or a tow off the road. Coverage is real but limited: weekday commute hours, Sundays roughly 1 to 7 pm year-round, and Saturday afternoons in spring and summer. Break down off-peak and you are on your own, so carry what you would need to handle it.
• Highway 85 itself bans trucks over 4.5 tons, so heavy commercial trucks get routed onto Highway 17 instead. That is part of why 17 carries the truck traffic it does. A private motorhome is fine on either road. Just follow the signed I-280 to Highway 85 to Highway 17 path.
• If a queue stacks up behind you on the climb, use a turnout to let it clear. You will have a calmer descent without a line of impatient cars on your bumper.

Your navigation app will sometimes try to save you a few minutes by routing you off Highway 17 and onto Highway 9 through Felton and the redwoods. In a big rig, do not take it.

Highway 9 is narrow, winding, and lined with blind curves under the trees. Multiple local RV parks advise against it outright for anything larger than a small rig and tell RVers to use Highway 17 instead. One spells it out: the route is not recommended for those pulling trailers or driving large motorhomes. That is the local consensus, not just ours.

If you are staying with us, you stay on Highway 17 over the summit and keep going down into Santa Cruz toward the East Side. If your destination is actually up in the San Lorenzo Valley, the RV-safe way in is Highway 17 north to the Mt. Hermon Road exit in Scotts Valley, then over to Graham Hill Road, rather than threading Highway 9 from the bottom. For the turn-by-turn into our gate, see Getting Here.

If you have the time and you would rather drive next to the ocean than over a mountain, take Highway 1 the whole way. From the city you run south through Pacifica and stay on the coast. The good news for RVers: the stretch that used to terrify drivers, the old Devil's Slide cliff road, is gone. Since 2013 traffic runs through the Tom Lantos Tunnels, which clear 22 feet, so height is a non-issue for any RV.

Past the tunnels, the road runs about 50 miles down to Santa Cruz with open bluffs, tide pools, beach pullouts, and nine state beaches and parks strung along the way. This stretch is far gentler than Big Sur. There are no clifftop hairpin turns, and nothing on it bans larger rigs the way some sections further south do. It is two lanes for long stretches though, so you will sit behind slower cars, and summer mornings can be gray with fog that flattens the views.

The honest call: Highway 1 is the better drive and the worse schedule. If your day is open and the coast is why you came to California, take it. If you are trying to get parked and into the water the same afternoon, Highway 17 wins. One wet-season caveat: winter storms occasionally close or one-way-control sections of Highway 1 north of Santa Cruz after slides, so check current conditions before you commit to the coast route in the rain. Either way you finish on the East Side, a nine-minute walk from the sand.

There is no train that runs all the way into Santa Cruz. The nearest passenger rail is San Jose Diridon Station, which Caltrain, the Capitol Corridor, the Coast Starlight, and ACE all serve. From Diridon you finish the trip by bus.

That bus is the Highway 17 Express, run by Santa Cruz Metro as part of the Amtrak Thruway network. It runs 365 days a year between downtown San Jose (Diridon) and downtown Santa Cruz, with a stop in Scotts Valley, and the ride is roughly an hour. The current fare is 7 dollars one way or a 14-dollar day pass, cash only with exact change because the driver does not make change, so bring coins and bills that work or use the Metro app.

So the carless route from the city is: Caltrain south to San Jose Diridon, walk to the bus plaza, and take the Highway 17 Express into Santa Cruz. Budget a little over two hours end to end. Once you are here without wheels, the local Santa Cruz Metro buses and a bike cover most of the East Side, and plenty is walkable from the park.

Fares and schedules change. Confirm the current Highway 17 Express timetable and price with Santa Cruz Metro before you rely on a specific departure.

Flying into San Francisco International and picking up a rental? Santa Cruz is about 60 miles of road from the airport and runs you a little over an hour without traffic, closer to 90 minutes if you hit Peninsula or Highway 17 congestion. From SFO you head south and you have the same two choices as everyone else: cut inland to Highway 17 for speed, or stay on the coast via Highway 1 for the views.

A rental car is the practical answer for most travelers, and it is the only one that makes sense if you are renting an RV from a Bay Area depot. If you are flying in to pick up a motorhome, build extra time into your first day. You will be learning the rig and the road at the same time, and Highway 17 is not where you want to be rushing in an unfamiliar coach.

Carless from the airport is possible but slow. Take BART to Millbrae, transfer to Caltrain south to San Jose Diridon, then the Highway 17 Express into town. Figure on the order of two and a half hours with the transfers, more if the connections do not line up. Once you are parked, the Getting Here page has the turn-by-turn into the gate. We are on Portola Drive, and the last few minutes are far easier than the morning over the hill.