The North Coast around Arcata rewards a day of driving in almost any direction. Trinidad, fifteen miles north on US-101, is a tiny fishing village perched above sea stacks and one of the most picturesque harbors on the California coast — the round trip with time to walk the bluffs and eat at the pier takes half a day. Eureka, eight miles south, has the Victorian Old Town and the Blue Ox Millworks; it's worth a morning if you're interested in architectural history. Further south, Ferndale is a remarkably intact Victorian dairy town in the Eel River valley — about an hour by car — and the finish line of the Kinetic Grand Championship each Memorial Day weekend.
Serious day-trippers head for the Avenue of the Giants, roughly an hour and a half south, where Humboldt Redwoods State Park protects the largest remaining old-growth redwood forest on earth. The Lost Coast — the long undeveloped stretch of coastline south of Petrolia — requires more time but rewards it with complete solitude and dramatic black-sand beaches.
