The North Coast of California runs from the wine country an hour above San Francisco up to the Oregon border — three hundred miles of cliffs, redwood forest, sea stacks and small fishing towns. It is one of the great drives in the United States: Highway 1 hugs the Pacific from Bodega Bay north, then turns inland to meet US-101, which carries on through the heart of redwood country.
The southern end is wine country: Sonoma, Petaluma, Healdsburg and the surrounding Sonoma Valley. Less polished and less expensive than Napa, with hundreds of small wineries and a strong farm-to-table food culture. Santa Rosa is the regional centre.
Along the Sonoma coast itself are tiny villages — Bodega Bay, Jenner, Gualala, Sea Ranch — known for inns, antique shops and grey-whale watching from December through April. Fort Ross State Historic Park preserves the 1812 Russian fur-trading outpost; the Kruse Rhododendron Reserve nearby blooms April to June.
Further north, the coast becomes wilder. Mendocino is the picturesque clifftop village that has been used as a backdrop in dozens of films; Fort Bragg is the working-port neighbour. Beyond, Humboldt and Del Norte counties hold the great old-growth redwood groves — Avenue of the Giants, Humboldt Redwoods State Park, and the coastal Redwood National and State Parks. Eureka and Arcata, on Humboldt Bay, are the only real towns this far north.
The weather is famously variable — fog rolls in most summer mornings and burns off by afternoon, and a sunny day at the wine valleys can be 30°F warmer than the coast a few miles west. Bring layers in any season.
Destinations in North Coast
Santa Rosa Eureka Sonoma Mendocino Arcata Petaluma Fort Bragg Trinidad Ferndale Crescent City Clear Lake
