To the Beaches of Santa Monica we go!
Today we are flying to California to take our last flight together as a family of three. With Baby #2 arriving in just under two months, we’re looking forward to spending some quality time together before things get crazy again.
Why Los Angeles you ask?
Well, we had a few requirements for this mid-summer trip. It needed to be:
- A destination that allowed us to redeem our Aeroplan Miles for a direct flight
- A short flight, under 3 hours
- A destination within or close to our Pacific time zone
- A place we have never been
- A place where Nicole would be comfortable being 30 weeks pregnant
Because the plan was to redeem our Aeroplan Miles for this trip, we jumped online and let the Aeroplan search engine deliver some options. We narrowed the field to San Diego, Los Angeles, Anchorage and Phoenix, all destinations we have yet to visit.
Although we really want to head north and explore Alaska and the Yukon, the sandy beaches of Santa Monica kept calling us. It’s easy for us to take an Alaskan cruise from Vancouver, so we’ll save that travel experience for another day.
Aeroplan has plenty of flight options for each destination but Los Angeles offered us the most flexibility. So the City of Angels became an easy choice. Besides, we can’t really call ourselves travelers without visiting Los Angeles, can we?!
What’s the plan?
A whole lot of nothing! We just want to hang out on the beach and enjoy the Californian sunshine. We’re not doing Disney World or Universal Studios this time around. Baby B is still too young for those attractions and we know he’ll want to visit when he’s older.
Instead, we plan to visit the Santa Monica pier and walk the strip to Venice Beach. We’ve purposely left our itinerary open so we can decide on activities once we arrive. But we know our days will be filled with ice cream, sand castles and fish tacos!
What should we do?
Depending on the weather, we might rent a car and cruise up the coast to Malibu or visit Hollywood Blvd and Rodeo Drive. Maybe some surfing or a visit to the Los Angeles zoo?
Have you visited Santa Monica and/or Los Angeles? Is there a restaurant or attraction we have to visit? Leave us a comment below, we’d love to hear your suggestions!
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Sounds absolutely delightful! At 30 weeks preggers…I couldn’t think of a better way to relax the weekend away!
It was very relaxing! We had a great time
I really enjoyed visiting the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Especially the gardens! They were so big and full of beautiful plants and buildings!
Great recommendations – we didn’t get to any of those on this visit. Most of our time was spent on the beach and on the pier
Awesome! We love Santa Monica and Venice Beach, and we took our rental car down the coast to Dana Point while we were in L.A., with lots of stops along all the beaches, like Huntington, Newport and Laguna Beach. It’s a beautiful drive along the coast, if you feel like renting a car one day 🙂
We had a great time on Santa Monica and Venice Beach. We will likely return!
Hey guys!
I spent ten days in Los Angeles last year. My first time there and I loved it so much that I’m actually going back in a few weeks!
I’ve written reports on almost everything I did when I was there on my blog.
Feel free to ask for more tips!
There’s so much to see and do, I can see how 10 days would go by quickly. We hope to return again when Baby B and his brother are a little older. It’s such a big city that it’s tough to do day trips with his nap time. I have a feeling a Disney trip is on the horizon!