Page 28 - 2024/2025 Travel Guide to CALIFORNIA

ROAD TRIPS
REV UP YOUR ENGINES
California's thrilling drives and iconic highways await!
PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY
One of the world’s great drives, the Pacific Coast Highway meanders along California’s rocky coastline with breathtaking views over most of its 1000-mile length. Visitors could spend their entire vacations driving and exploring the attractions along the way.
C alifornians didn’t invent the car, but they like to think, with some justifica- tion, that they invented the automobile
lifestyle. With drive-thru grocery stores, drive-thru pharmacies, drive-thru churches and even drive-thru mortuaries, one gets the feeling that if Californians could only invent a drive-thru delivery room they could hap- pily go from cradle to grave without ever having to pull over to the curb.
California is a land of supersized dis- tances, jumbo landscapes and big-gulp vistas, and the best way to see it all is on a road trip, or, better yet, a series of road trips. Here are a few favorites.
Up the Coast
Northern Californians call it “Highway 1” and Southern Californians call it the “Pacific Coast Highway”—or, simply, the “PCH”—but there’s no doubt that the road that hugs the state’s remarkable coastline, often close enough to feel the salt spray, offers one of the world’s classic driving trips.
From sun-splashed Southern California beaches to the misty redwood forests near the Oregon border, the journey, which includes a few stretches on other highways, is a touch over 1,000 miles.
The sights are so numerous one can barely scratch the surface: The Hotel Del
26 2024-25 TRAVEL GUIDE TO CALIFORNIA
BY JOHN FLINN
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