Crescent City sits at the far northern end of the California coast, just 20 miles from the Oregon border and right at the doorstep of Redwood National and State Parks. It is a small, no-frills fishing town — the kind of place where the working harbor still smells of brine and diesel, and the fog rolls in thick enough to soften everything.
The town takes its name from its crescent-shaped bay, and the bay is what gives it character. At low tide you can walk across a causeway to Battery Point Island, where the oldest working lighthouse on the Pacific Coast has stood since 1856. Offshore, sea lions haul out on the rocks. The beaches here are wide, wild, and cold — not swimming beaches, but spectacular ones.
Crescent City is also notable for something less scenic: it was almost entirely destroyed by the tsunami that followed the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake in Alaska. Much of the downtown was rebuilt afterward, which explains the plain, utilitarian architecture. A small park near the harbor now marks the event.
For travelers heading into the redwoods, Crescent City makes a practical base. The drive south into Redwood National Park begins almost immediately, and the Smith River — one of the last undammed rivers in California — is minutes away for anyone who wants to fish or just watch jade-green water run over boulders.