Monterey and Big Sur

Monterey

Monterey sits at the northern end of one of the most spectacular stretches of coastline in the world. It is a proper working town — fishing boats still go out from the harbour, the farmers market is excellent, and the restaurants along Cannery Row and the Old Town are genuinely good rather than merely tourist-facing.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium is one of the finest in the world and not something to skip in favour of getting to Big Sur faster. The giant kelp forest exhibit alone — a three-storey tank with natural light filtering through living kelp — is unlike anything else. Allow a full half-day. Children find it extraordinary; adults find it surprisingly moving.

The 17-Mile Drive through Pebble Beach is a private toll road ($12 per car) connecting Monterey to Carmel-by-the-Sea along a coastline of extraordinary cypress trees, white sand coves and the most photographed lone tree in California. Carmel itself is a small, expensive and very beautiful town worth an hour of wandering.

Big Sur

Big Sur is not a town. It is a ninety-mile stretch of Highway 1 between Carmel and San Simeon where the Santa Lucia mountains fall directly into the Pacific. There are no traffic lights, no chain restaurants and no mobile signal for much of it. This is the point.

Bixby Bridge is the most photographed point on the entire Pacific Coast Highway — a graceful concrete arch over a deep canyon, built in 1932, with the ocean behind it. Stop and walk onto the bridge. Every photograph you have ever seen of it fails to convey the scale.

Driving south from Carmel, Bixby is the first of several remarkable bridges that carry Highway 1 across the deep ravines where the mountains meet the coast. Rocky Creek Bridge, two miles south of Bixby, is less photographed and equally impressive — a twin-arch span that sits higher above the canyon floor and offers a cleaner view of the raw coastline. Hurricane Point, just beyond it, is a pullout with one of the widest uninterrupted views of the Pacific on the entire coast. Stop here. The wind is usually fierce and the scale of the ocean from this elevation is disorienting in the best possible way.

Further south, the Big Creek Bridge near Gorda is the longest and highest of the Big Sur spans — 700 feet long, 260 feet above the creek bed — and largely unknown to visitors who have already spent their attention on Bixby. Each of these bridges was built during the Depression by crews working by hand on near-vertical cliffs. The engineering is as remarkable as the scenery.

Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park has excellent hiking through redwood groves to waterfalls and coastal views. The trail to McWay Falls — an 80-foot waterfall that drops directly onto a beach accessible only to wildlife — is one of the most beautiful short walks in California. It takes twenty minutes and will stay with you.

The stretch from Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park south to San Simeon is the wildest and most remote part of the drive. Elephant seals haul out on the beach at Piedras Blancas — hundreds of them, snoring and occasionally fighting — in a colony you can observe from a few metres away. It is completely free and genuinely remarkable.

Morro Bay and Morro Rock

Emerging from the southern end of Big Sur, the landscape opens out and Morro Rock announces itself from miles away — a 581-foot volcanic plug rising straight out of the Pacific at the mouth of Morro Bay estuary. It is one of a chain of ancient volcanic peaks running inland and is immediately, unmistakably dramatic. The rock itself is a protected sanctuary for peregrine falcons and cannot be climbed, but it dominates the town from every angle.

Morro Bay is a working fishing town and refreshingly uncommercialized for this stretch of coast. The Embarcadero runs along the waterfront with fish restaurants, kayak hire and views across the estuary to the rock. Sea otters float in the bay with a regularity that makes them seem almost staged — wrap yourself in kelp, crack a clam on your chest, look unconcerned. The estuary is a significant bird sanctuary and one of the best spots on the California coast for watching shorebirds and waders.

Morro Bay State Park, on the southern edge of the estuary, has excellent hiking through coastal dunes and a natural history museum with a surprisingly good overview of the local ecosystem. The park campground is one of the more atmospheric places to spend a night on this coast, with views of the rock at dawn that are genuinely memorable.

If you are driving the coast in one direction, Morro Bay makes an excellent overnight stop between Big Sur and Santa Barbara — far enough from both to break the drive sensibly, interesting enough to justify the stop on its own terms.

Hearst Castle

At the southern end of the Big Sur stretch, above the town of San Simeon, William Randolph Hearst spent forty years building a hilltop estate that defies reasonable description. The Grand Rooms tour takes you through the main house — a riot of genuine European antiques, Renaissance ceilings, tapestries and an indoor swimming pool lined with gold-leaf mosaic tiles. The outdoor Neptune Pool, overlooking the Pacific, was filled with a million gallons of heated water and hosted the most glamorous guest list in 1930s Hollywood.

It is not subtle. It is not meant to be. As an expression of extraordinary wealth and extraordinary taste applied without restraint, it is completely singular. Book the Grand Rooms tour in advance; it sells out on weekends.

When to go and practical notes

Highway 1 through Big Sur is subject to landslide closures, particularly after heavy winter rain. Check Caltrans road conditions before you travel — sections have closed for months at a time following major slides. The road was rebuilt and largely reopened in 2018 after a significant collapse, but this coast is geologically active and conditions change.

There are very few places to buy petrol between Carmel and San Simeon. Fill up before you leave Monterey. The few lodges and restaurants along the Big Sur coast are expensive and popular — book well in advance if you plan to stay overnight. The Ventana Big Sur and Post Ranch Inn are two of the most extraordinary places to stay in California.