Rachel Chandler’s Scenic Route
After two celebrations—one intimate affair in Los Angeles, and a second in Gloucestershire, England—newly weds Tom Guinness and Rachel Chandler were ready to hit the road. Here, Chandler shares her honeymoon snapshots from the couple’s romantic drive up the west coast.
After our wedding celebration in England, Tom and I managed to take a quick honeymoon in California. As I’m from Los Angeles I was excited to show Tom the West Coast. We rented a vintage Mustang and took off from San Diego to Portland. It’s been years since I’ve done this drive so we got some tips from friends as well as from the concierge at each hotel we stayed in along the way.
We stopped to take a stroll en route to Los Angeles. Tom said it reminded him of Cornwall, where he grew up.
Here we are in LA. The car gets a lot of attention. Our friend Susan Feldman from One Kings Lane took us shopping for our new home. Our first stop was Peter Dunham’s store Hollywood At Home. Peter is an old family friend of Tom’s and we had a laugh hearing stories about his elder siblings as children.
Before getting back on Highway 1 we stopped at my favorite food shop Erewhon for road trip snacks.
We decided to stop in Big Sur for the night. The landscape is really mind blowing.
I spent a lot of time in San Francisco as a child and my favorite part of the whole trip was driving Tom around.
Here is a touristy photograph of me by the Golden Gate Bridge. I couldn’t resist.
In the evening we went for cocktails at Tosca Café, which was recommended to me by Jacqui Getty. They have an antique jukebox that plays opera.
We eventually made it all the way up to Portland where we traded in the mustang for bicycles. We stayed at The Nines, a boutique hotel in the historic Meier & Frank Building.
The Luxury Collection concierge set us up with a tour of Powell’s Books. This was another highlight. We left with piles of old exhibition catalogues.
