I just love the route along Highway 1....Have been to a few places on highway 1 and would love to go on others (which I do not even know about)....Such scenic beauty - mind-blowing - the oceanic views are just awesome!!!
1. Mendocino
2. Pointe Reyes Light house/Bodega Bay
3. Monterey/Carmel/17-Mile Drive/Big Sur
4. Cambria
5. Mount Shasta (some drive from sacramento to Shasta includes highway 1)
6. Hearst Castle
The latest we went to was Monterey/Big Sur on the Labor Day weekend. We started from Sacramento at almost 10.30am and stopped at Santa Cruz Beach. It was a long long beach with so many people, mostly with kids. It had a casino too and rides for kids. We liked the beach - just that the parking there was tough and the traffic from San Jose to Santa Cruz was really slow.
We started from the beach at around 3pm for our next destination - Monterey. It was almost 70 miles from Santa Cruz and the drive was ok. We went to Monterey wharf and Monterey Beach. The Monterey downtown near the beach was a nice place - nice small shops. There was a Greek Festival going on - we enjoyed the music/dances in the festival and ofcourse the awesum Greek food. Did some Monterey shopping and then drove to our next stop - Carmel-by-the-sea. Carmel - a small town with a beautiful beach which is at the end of its downtown. We liked Carmel - enjoyed the sunset on the beach which made our evening! Next we drove back to Salinas - 20 miles from Carmel where we had our hotel reservation. Salinas again was not a very big city but had nice eateries and everything one can hope for. We went to a Thai restuarant there - Yangtse's Taste of Thai on the Main Street which had a nice ambience and very healthy food. Their service was worth praising.
Next day we started early after breakfast and straight away went to 17-Mile Drive. 17-Mile had a 10$ enterance fee. It went through a small town with narrow roads and lots of houses - they seemed to be costly houses. We were kind of amused - is this what we paid for? And then came the awesum view - the best oceanic view we have ever seen - the 17-mile drive. The beauty of the coast can just not be described - it was more than stunning!!...The coastal oceanic view stretches for 17 miles and thus the name. 17 Mile Drive, Carmel and Montery are quite close to each other. After spending some time in 17 Mile, we next drove to Big Sur. The drive from 17 Mile to Big Sur was mind blowing - just simply mind blowing. It was an all oceanic drive - everyone was driving slow - looking at the beauty around. Big Sur was almost 40 miles from there. We went to the Pfifer State Park - did some strenous hikes there. Most of the trails were closed there due to the fire in Big Sur last month which had taken days to extinguish. While on our back home, we again stopped by Carmel beach going past its downtown - enjoyed the sun there and drove back to Sacramento!
I would really recommend the 17-Mile drive and the drive from 17-Mile to Big Sur. It was worth every single money and time we spent!
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