California dreaming? More like a nightmare

She had the up-for-it boyfriend, the luxury car and the road trip of a lifetime all mapped out. But the wrong turns began before Sophia Money-Coutts even set off for the airport…

It promised to be the sunniest, most spoiling holiday ever: a ten-day road trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles with my boyfriend, taking in Californian mountains, beaches and restaurants, while staying in posh hotels along the way. It was a few years ago, when I was Tatler magazine’s car critic and, for the drive, we had been loaned a long-wheelbase Range Rover: a gunmetal-grey monster the size of a mobile home. Also, the Tatler travel editor sorted out complimentary nights in the hotels (ah, the bygone perks of working for a glossy magazine), including one in a ‘luxury tent’ in Big Sur, the dramatic strip of coastline where the TV drama Big Little Lies was set.

I’d been away with boyfriends before: weekends to the country; the odd jaunt to a European city for a spot of culture and shagging in a dubious Airbnb. But this would be my longest, most grown-up trip ever with another half, and I wanted it to be perfect.

We had our first row before we’d even left – over airline seats. The flight to San Francisco is just over 11 hours and I prefer the aisle for such journeys because I feel bad at the idea of tapping a stranger on the shoulder every time I want to pee. The trouble was, my boyfriend, who we shall call Jake, wanted the same. We looked at the seat map, debated the options, bickered and booked seats sitting apart from one another. Some might say this was an omen.

We landed in San Francisco, picked up the enormous car and navigated the roads slowly to our hotel. The next two days were all right. I don’t entirely understand the fuss about a city that has iconic sights –

the Golden Gate Bridge! The hilly streets! – yet such a glaring and desperate homeless situation. Presumably some visitors see this as the ‘seedy charm’ of a place where hippies once roamed. We engaged in a spot of prison tourism at Alcatraz; we ate chowder on Pier 39; we went to an immensely expensive fish restaurant where the waiter was snotty because we ordered starters instead of main courses to keep the cost down. (‘No entrées?’)

What I wanted, I realised, as I sat there feeling bad about our microscopic piece of tuna, was to be like a couple in a honeymoon advert – holding hands over the tablecloth, feet entwined, whispering lovely things to one another. But my overriding emotion throughout that dinner was anxiety as I tried mentally to calculate how much more we’d have to leave the waiter as a tip.

The next day I woke up feeling sick. Not because of the tuna but because, I now know a few years on, I’m always sick within two or three days of arriving in America. It’s something to do with the food – the starch, the sugar, the sheer amount of it. ‘I’d just like a plain apple,’ I groaned to Jake from the passenger seat of the Range Rover as we headed east from San Francisco. In a gas station I found an apple – it was the size of my head and as sweet as candyfloss. Genetically modified? Injected with sugar water? Who knows. We drove on towards Yosemite, the national park full of mountains, waterfalls and alarming wildlife (bears, coyotes, 13 types of snake). You hike here, that’s the point. But I was sick and Jake was jet-lagged so we drove around like a couple of pensioners, parking up underneath the giant sequoias for an afternoon snooze. Essentially, we slept through our time in one of the world’s most beautiful locations.

Big Sur was worse. Spectacular, sure, but ruined by a furious argument when I dropped my phone and the screen smashed on a rock. We now had only one phone between us, Jake ranted. I cried. We drove along the coast road, looking out at the Pacific crashing on the golden beaches, and I carried on crying. I was upset about being told off like a child for dropping my own phone, but it was more than that – this holiday wasn’t perfect; our relationship even less so. And then I felt spoilt for feeling so sad. ‘You guys are doing our honeymoon trip!’ friends messaged in response to the endless Instagram pictures we posted (obviously, although you may be having a bad time on holiday, you post pictures to tell everyone otherwise).

Yet it didn’t feel very honeymoon-y, so then I felt spoilt, sad and guilty. I was lucky to be here, in this ridiculous car, drinking delicious Californian wine and gazing at Californian sunsets. But we were sharing so much time in the car I felt claustrophobic. Maybe things would look up when we got to LA…

We reached the city of stars (terse mutterings about traffic) and checked in at the legendary Hotel Bel-Air, all pale pink cottages and bright bougainvillea, where every celebrity who ever breathed has stayed. Not long after arriving, I heard a familiar voice and turned to see Meg Ryan having a coffee with someone in the lobby.

That night we met my brother for dinner at Soho House West Hollywood (if you’re in LA, you might as well do it as pretentiously as possible), and he asked us about our trip. ‘It’s been great!’ Jake and I chorused, although some months later, post break-up, my brother told me that this was the least convincing performance he’d ever witnessed. Which is saying something in that city.

Over the next two days, we hired bikes in Santa Monica, visited the Getty Center and hiked to the Griffith Observatory to stare out at the view below. Often, towards the end of a holiday, I’ve wished I could turn back time, skip back a week and do it all over again. But here I had a longing to be home, back on familiar territory where I wouldn’t feel so wobbly and had space outside the Range Rover to examine my feelings.

The last night saw our most heated row – Jake wanted to meet some friends in a club and I wanted us to spend our last evening alone, to see if we could still be that starry-eyed couple snogging over their starters. We ended up going to the club, fighting about it in the Uber and I cried (again) in our hotel room, where the question of breaking up was broached.

That didn’t happen for another few months, but this holiday was the start of the end. Road trips are intense because you spend so much time with the other person, romantic road trips even more so.

If you’re planning a holiday with a new partner, consider whether you want to spend every waking and sleeping minute beside them. Also, have a conversation about whether you’re aisle or window seat before booking that flight.

‘I FELT SICK, HE WAS JET-LAGGED, SO WE SLEPT THROUGH OUR TIME IN ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL LOCATIONS’

Sophia’s new novel Looking Out For Love is published by HarperCollins, €12.59