If you want to do a driving vacation, I suggest flying to San Francisco and driving north on highway 101 to Canada. In the California secion, you can see the redwoods (which are breath taking), Oregon has all publically owned beaches and some of the prettiest coast I've ever seen complete with breath taking views, accessable light houses, old water front towns, and so on. Washington has a very rugged coast line. There is so much to see and do on the Pacific coast from San Francisco north. The whole area is scarcely populated with most towns having between 200-30,000 people. The largest city you will encounter is San Francisco and Seattle. The rest are small. If you make it clear to Seattle, there is A LOT to see and do there.