Page 96 - 2025-2026 Travel Guide to California

NORTH COAST
Victorian villages, picturesque fishing harbors and the world’s tallest trees
TOP CITIES
Mendocino, Eureka, Crescent City, Fort Bragg,
Garberville, Arcata, Ukiah, Cloverdale, Ferndale
B Y J O H N F L I N N
DOMESTIC GATEWAY
The Arcata-Eureka Airport (EKA), 16 miles (26 km) from
downtown Eureka, has service from San Francisco and
other hubs, but no international flights
TOURISM WEBSITES
visitdelnortecounty.com
northofordinaryca.com
This should put things in perspective: The North Coast’s
tallest building is only 77 feet tall, but its tallest tree, named
Hyperion, stands 379 feet tall. Until you’ve seen one up close,
it’s hard to grasp just how neck-craningly high a coastal redwood
tree can grow. These 3,000-year-old arboreal titans—nature’s
loftiest skyscrapers—grow in only one place in the world: a narrow
strip of fog-shrouded mountains along California’s wild and rela-
tively unvisited North Coast.
northcoastca.com
visitredwoods.com
visitmendocino.com
redwoodcoastparks.com
POPULATION
1,003,000
NORTH
COAST
The Redwood Highway
Old-growth redwoods are preserved in a chain of parks strung
along Highway 101, known as the Redwood Highway. In southern
Humboldt County, Humboldt Redwoods State Park straddles the
scenic drive known as the Avenue of the Giants. In northern Hum-
boldt and Del Norte counties, a cluster of parks—Redwood
National Park and Prairie Creek Redwoods, Del Norte Coast Red-
woods and Jedediah Smith Redwoods state parks—form one
contiguous redwood reserve.
94 2025-26 TRAVEL GUIDE TO CALIFORNIA
TOM REICHNER/SHUTTERSTOCK; VICTORIA DITKOVSKY/SHUTTERSTOCK. OPPOSITE: ADRI/SHUTTERSTOCK