Things to do / Travel Guide
The central California coast region is home to a fantastic selection of lakes, mountains, valleys, and beaches that straddle several different climate zones. The area is home to all sorts of people including students, immigrants, middle-class workers, computer techies, retirees, fishermen, potential investors (we love you!!), and farmers. True, there are some larger towns in the area, but they are dwarfed in comparison to the major population centers of the San Francisco, and San Jose metro areas.
The big tourist draw in this region is the city of San Francisco. Consistently ranked as one of the world's favorite cities to visit, San Francisco is the world-famous city by the bay and home to many iconic images such as the Golden Gate Bridge, the Transamerica Building, Alcatraz Island, as well as Chinatown, cable cars, and the famous zigzagging Lombard Street. San Francisco is also famous for the Fisherman's Wharf, the Castro District, Market Street and the Coit Tower.
San Francisco was founded in 1776 by Spanish settlers who named the city after St. Francis. The city remained relatively small until the boom period from the start of the 1848 California Gold Rush until 1906, when the city was struck by a massive earthquake. Because the San Andreas Fault runs through the San Francisco Peninsula, the city is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes. As a result of the earthquake, in 1906 much of the city was destroyed by fire, but since that time San Francisco has become one of the country's biggest centers for commerce, trade, shipping, and culture.
Although San Francisco is the city by the bay, it's not the only city around the bay. Other cities around the larger Bay Area, and beyond the official city limits of San Francisco proper, include the cities of San Jose, Oakland, and Berkeley.
San Jose, and specifically Silicon Valley, is internationally recognized as the “capital of the computer industry.” Targeted for destruction by the villain in the James Bond film “View to a Kill,” Silicon Valley is the absolute worldwide epicenter of the semiconductor industry and has become the beating heart of the high-tech business in California. This northern part of the Santa Clara Valley is home to heaps of huge high-tech companies including Adobe Systems, Cisco Systems, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Yahoo!, and many more.
Berkeley, the academic hub of the Bay Area, is home to the University of California at Berkeley and is also famous, like much of the San Francisco area, for beatniks, hippies, and yuppies. Berkeley became increasingly more activist during the McCarthy years after many professors refused to sign a loyalty oath to the university. This ethos of free thought led many students to become actively involved in both the Civil Rights Movement and protests against the Vietnam War. The city still remains one of the most liberal in the country, with over 90% of Berkeley's residents voting for John Kerry in the last election.
The central California region has also been featured prominently in the Pulitzer prize-winning literature of John Steinbeck, who was born and raised in Salinas, near Monterey. Many of his popular novels, such as “The Grapes of Wrath,” “East of Eden,” “Cannery Row,” and “Of Mice and Men,” were inspired by the people he encountered in Salinas and were written with this area of the state serving as the scenic backdrop to many of his stories. Today, John Steinbeck's boyhood home in Salinas has been turned into the National Steinbeck Center.
California is also famous for its wines, which are produced in Napa Valley and Sonoma County, just north of the San Francisco metropolitan area. California ranks number four in terms of worldwide wine production, after France, Italy and Spain, and the wine country is the second most popular tourist destination in the entire state, second only to Disneyland in southern California. Napa Valley and Sonoma County are also host to a wide range of spas and resorts as well as beautiful countryside that is perfect for touring.
Central California is crisscrossed by mountains and valleys, forests and rivers. One of the most magnificent forests in California is located at Muir Woods in Marin County. Muir Woods is a compact and accessible taste of the “California Redwoods.” The Muir Woods National Monument, as it is officially called, is an old-growth coastal redwood forest famous for coastal fogs and a moist, humid atmosphere. The impressive coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) that are found in this forest are relatives of the giant sequoia and the majority of them inside Muir Woods are at least 500 years old. The tallest redwood in the park reaches a height of over 250 feet.
The Monterey Peninsula is located about 115 miles south of the San Francisco Bay Area and it sticks out into the Pacific Ocean, forming the southern edge of Monterey Bay. Along the northern side of the Monterey Peninsula there is the beautiful college town of Santa Cruz (home to the University of California Santa Cruz “Slugs”). It is also famous for being the home of O'Neill Wetsuits and Santa Cruz Surfboards, as well as other attractions such as the Mystery Spot and the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. On the southern side of the Monterey Peninsula is the town of Carmel-by-the-Sea. Carmel, as it is also called, is famous for its bustling arts scene and for being the inspiration for many novelists such as Jack London, George Sterling, and Sinclair Lewis. Just beyond Carmel is the upscale and pricey community of Pebble Beach, which is famous for big houses and world-class golfing.
The Monterey Peninsula is traversed by the Santa Lucia Mountains as well as the Carmel River. Just south of the Carmel River and reaching about 20 miles inland is Big Sur. For all intents and purposes, Big Sur is noted for a challenging, some even say “unfriendly,” rugged terrain but the area is truly scenic and beautiful and there are many natural sights to be seen in and around Big Sur. Two sights in Big Sur are particularly well known: one is the Bixby Bridge, which crosses over a large canyon along the Big Sure coastline, and the other famous spot is the McWay Cove Waterfall, where the water drops 80 feet off a cliff directly onto the beach.
From the scenic wineries and vineyards of Napa Valley and Sonoma County, to the bustling, world-famous metropolis of San Francisco, to the tranquil, beautiful coastal towns - the central coast of California region has enough attractions and beauty to entertain any tourist for weeks on end. There is no better way to get around the central California coast than on the famous Pacific Coast Highway (PCH or California Highway 1). The PCH is a beautiful drive that begins south of Los Angeles and slowly winds its way up the coast through San Luis Obispo, Carmel, Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Marin County, and finally terminates in Mendocino County. This drive takes you through the best that California has to offer - dozens of historical landmarks, amazing views of coastal beaches and cliffs, and access to some of the most famous cities in the country.
The central California coast is located on Pacific Time, three hours behind Eastern Time.