Maybe you’ve seen some of your friends go to Lake Tahoe for the weekend. I know I have. I even went once recently. Lake Tahoe has a lot of outdoor fun available for all ages to enjoy in the warm weather. It’s also COVID-19 friendly ✅
If you’re coming from LA, which you probably are reading this series, Lake Tahoe is about a 7 hour drive. To enjoy the water activities, you should get there around 8:30am to save a good spot, especially if you have a big group. So that means either taking a very early drive or coming in the day/night before.
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Water Activities:
You can rent your own private boat. There’s a lot of docks to rent from around Lake Tahoe. Tahoe is a big place so it’s best if you rent one closest to the area you want to stay at the most. When we stayed at Incline Village, we rented from this company. The pick up time for the boat was at 9:30AM. We initially thought that was too early but turns out it was perfect. It took about an hour before we were able to leave after all of the paperwork and safety talk.
Things to consider: are do you want to stay in the north or south? Or does it really matter? Traffic definitely matters around noon time and it can take up some time to travel from the place you’re staying at to the docks or to wherever you want to go.
I would suggest going to North Lake Tahoe for water activities. There are a lot of beaches along Incline Village that you can visit while on the boat and swim to.
A few people actually did that while we were at the Secret Cove.
You can have your own private area away from the crowd and still have access to the beach.
When renting a boat, they provide water toys, like a floaty to pull, as an example.
You can rent a jet ski, paddle board, water bike, etc for hourly rates at other shops as well. Make sure to check out Yelp to find something to your liking.
One good thing about getting your own boat is that you can get to locations that other people might not be able to access. We randomly found this area with nice looking rocks.
And you can also just go plain swimming. You can enter from any entrance of the lake. There are a lot.
Ground Activities:
Go on a hike! There are many hikes in Lake Tahoe. Most of the hikes are in South Lake Tahoe.
Here are three hikes on my wish list:
Now as far as a day-to-day schedule:
Friday:
Drive up to Tahoe. Buy some groceries when you’re in the area. Make sure you have enough drinking water and sunblock.
If you have time, drink and hang out. Play some board games and rest up.
Saturday:
8:30am – get to the lake, get your water rental, or go to one of the beaches and save your spot. Don’t forget to bring snacks and make sure to take whatever you brought in back out. Do your part and clean up.
Also there are no life guards in the area. So stay safe.
Around noon – make your way to one of the hikes. Make sure to pick a hike that you feel comfortable with and bring tons of water.
Around 5pm – get some dinner. If you didn’t buy groceries to cook earlier, don’t worry. There are a lot of food places to eat at. Just make sure they have outdoor seating. Or if you’re in the Nevada side, that won’t matter.
Night time – chill and hang out. Or you can head back out to the lake and look at the stars.
Sunday:
Sunrise – maybe you’re a morning person or like sunrises. Catch the sunrise at one of the hikes or at the lake before you head out
Then drive back home whenever 👍
