Napa Valley Long Weekend Itinerary

My husband planned our Napa trip for my birthday in November, and it was a blast! The weather was gorgeous, and the scenery was spectacular with all of the fall colors and yellow leaves. We stayed for four days in Calistoga and made the most of our time in Napa. I’m already planning our trip to go back!

You can see my first post about Napa Valley here!

Indian Springs Calistoga Napa California Kinsey Walsh Photography

Below is our itinerary. I’m only including tastings/restaurants that we really enjoyed, and leaving out a few things that I don’t recommend 🙂

Note: We also planned our itinerary by location so that we could take easy Uber rides between appointments. We rented a car from the airport but used Uber to get around once we were in Napa.

Wednesday (Travel/Callistoga):
- 2:00pm: Land and rent a car. Drive to Callistoga and check into hotel. It took about 2 hours to drive to Callistoga from SFO with all of the traffic.
  - This year we stayed at the Indian Springs Resort, which was really fun (more details at the bottom of the post)! They have games, a great spa, and an Olympic sized hot spring pool (which is pretty amazing!).
- Spend time walking around the resort. We bought a bottle of wine and played ping-pong, shuffle board, and sat by the fire.
- 7:30pm: Dinner at Solbar (10 min Uber from hotel)

Note: We decided that we like to start each day with a sparkling wine tasting which was great! It is so much nicer to have a crisp bubbly white in the morning than a bold red.

Thursday (Rutherford):
- 10:00am: Brunch at Sam’s Social Club
- 12:00pm: Tasting on the patio at Mumm . Probably my favorite sparkling wine of the weekend. They also have a good cracker/nuts plate
- 3:00pm: Signature tasting at Caymus (beautiful patio! Must book in advance). We bought a bottle for dinner that night that was BYOB.
- 6:00pm: Dinner at Lovina. They had an amazing Impossible Lasagna and we opened our bottle of Caymus.
- After dinner we walked back to the hotel through the town of Calistoga along Lincoln Ave. When we got back to the hotel we changed into swimsuits and got in the natural hot spring pool. The hot spring is an Olympic-sized mineral water pool fed by on-site geysers. The temperatures reach approximately 92–102 degrees Fahrenheit even in the winter.

R&D kitchen restaurant Younteville Napa Valley visit

Friday (Younteville):
- 9:00am: Coffee at Callistoga Roatary
- 10:00am: Brunch at Sam’s Social Club (again). Would definitely recommend Farmstead Long Meadow Ranch also!
- 12:00: Sparkling wine tasting at Domaine Chandon. This place is beautiful, has a great patio, and would be great for groups. We ended up meeting a nice group of people and sharing a bottle of champs on the pato with them.
- 2:00pm: Lunch outside at R&D kitchen
- We walked around Younteville and it was adorable! There are so many great wineries, shops, and little parks all in walking distance.
- 4:00pm: We stopped and had a drink at the Restoration Hardware patio and it was gorgeous! I highly recommend getting a drink here or at least stopping by.
- 7:00pm: Dinner at Ciccio’s. You can’t make reservations here but we sat at the bar and had the Altamura wine tasting. They were so accommodating and made a cheese free veggie pizza that was amazing!

French Laundry restaurant Younteville Napa Valley visit Kinsey Walsh Photography

Restoration Hardware restaurant Younteville Napa Valley visit Kinsey Walsh Photography

Bistro Jeanty restaurant Younteville Napa Valley visit Kinsey Walsh Photograpghy

Saturday (Callistoga/St. Helena):
- We spent the morning sleeping in and exploring around Callistoga. Lincoln Avenue is the main little street with all of the restaurant, shops, and even an art gallery. I wish we would have tried Evangeline’s – it looks so cute!
- 1:00pm: Tasting on the patio at Duckhorn. This place was very casual and had a fun laid-back atmosphere. At this tasting you sit on the patio and go up to the bar for each tasting.
- 3:00pm: Freemark Abbey Cabarnet Comparative Tasting – We sat outside in the Partner’s Lounge and tried their red wines. This is a great tasting if you like heavy, bold reds!
- 6:00pm: We were supposed to go to Charter Oak (which looks amazing) but ended up going back near our hotel and going to Sushi Mambo.

Sunday: we packed up and headed to airport to fly home!

Note: It’s a good idea to schedule and make appointments ahead of time for popular wineries or if there is a certain experience/tasting you want to make sure is available. Most wineries have the option to book and pay online.

Hotel Accommodations

Indian Springs is a collection of historic cottages, bungalows, and Mission Revival–style buildings on 16 acres of land, and their tag line is “luxury and warmth without all the fuss”. We chose a Geyser View King room with fireplace and balcony and it was a great place to stay for an affordable price. The room and bathroom had been recently renovated so it felt updated and clean. We also liked all of the on-site amenities, activities and that we could walk to town and restaurants. I would definitely not consider it a “5 Star” hotel, and would recommend the Solage right down the street if you want a more luxury experience in Calistoga. During the time of year we went, the price for our room was around $450/night, and the Solage was around $750/night. If you want better hotel rates, you can definitely get more affordable pricing in off-seasons where I think you can stay at Indian Springs for under $300. We didn’t spend much time in the room, so for us it didn’t make sense to spend a fortune for a hotel.

In 2017 we stayed in Rutherford, in 2019 we stayed in Callistoga, and I think next time we will stay in Younteville.