No, my experience is that 101 north is the more likely to be severely impacted by traffic, at least as far as Santa Barbara. But "more likely" is still not all that often.

But if you don't care about anything other than getting their as soon as possible then I'd probably take the 5 to 152 route.

And if you're a Pea Soup person (which I don't understand, the soup is ok but everything else they serve is horrible) you can still that since there is one in Santa Nella (a couple miles beyond the 152 interchange).

101 is a prettier drive, but with more stopping. Remember that it's not always a freeway. So it'll take you a lot longer on the 101.

Ya know, reminds me of the time the Hubster took the 1 {101, whichever, 1 is along the coast directly and the 101 a little inland?} from Knotts down to Dana Point.

Ohmygawd. Never again. Never. Sure, it was 'nice' but it took freakin' hours upon hours. No thanks.

blueerica~same thing for us. We left Monterey and headed off towards San Simeon and the kids were groaning 'We've only gone 10 miles????' {oh, wait, that was me....}. Since we still enjoy the view we just make up the time by making sure to leave Monterey earlier in the day so we can arrive in San Simeon right at sunset. {after stopping for lunch at Julia Pffiefer Burns for lunch and photos...}.

I so want to go now.

1 is a much slower road than 101. With a few exceptions 101 is multilane highway. With pretty much no exceptions 1 is two lane road and matches the coast curve for curve.

That is what we normally take.

We did that also from San Francisco up into Florence, OR.

We kept seeing a father/son along the route, staying at the same places. They were going to Seattle and we asked if they would continue on along the 1 and they said they couldn't take it anymore!! LOL

God that was a long drive. It seemed faster driving home when we could see the towns in the middle of nowhere. I'm sure the cereal killing great-white shark clowns and the UFOs didn't help either.

Cereal Killers! :D

1 only runs from Santa Barbara to Leggett, CA (well, technically it runs all the way down into LA but most people wouldn't use it south of Santa Barbara).

So by the time you reached Florence, 1 was several hundred miles into the background. Unless everybody was doing incredibly short days I don't see how it would take more than two days to drive the entire length. I have driven the entire length of 101 (from LA up around the Olympic peninsula and then down Puget Sound to Olympia). It's a nice drive but they've done too many improvements on it and now it frequently feels too much like an interstate (San Luis Obispo to Santa Rosa and then norther Oregon coast particularly).

For no reason other than you mentioning it, here's my photo from the one time we stopped and slept in Florence:

They all float down here. Until the UFO car light takes them away.

Hmm. Well, hmm. I guess not the one but along the coast all the way and it took forever. Now that you mention it, we did have quite a bit inland but it was still two lanes and a long drive. Windy, curvey. Long. Woozy.

We took our time, four nights. We started off from Frisco, first night in Fort Bragg, second in Eureka, Crescent City, then Florence.

Ah, I don't remember that from Florence. We stayed at the Best Western right as you hit the town, before you cross the bridge {heading north}. It seemed quite old but they said it was from the 70s' or later. {the design was quite older to me}. Across the bridge was a quaint little seaport village. Perhaps {since we didn't go past the highway that we then took into Portland} that was up there?

We did go in to the Taco Bell. I remember because I rang the bell for such good service. :D

Doh, I need to make a photo bucket account....I have so many pics....