Placerville sits halfway between Sacramento and South Lake Tahoe on Highway 50, and it's a better stop than you might expect. Main Street mixes hip coffee shops, old-fashioned burger joints, and enough historical grit to keep things interesting.
The town earned its colorful history during the 1849 Gold Rush, when it was briefly the third-largest city in California. It started as "Old Dry Diggins," then became "Hangtown" — named for a tree on Main Street that served as the gallows for surrounding communities. Locals eventually decided that name was bad for business and renamed it Placerville, after the placer mining techniques used in the area. The hanging dummy still dangling above a shop on Main Street is a wink at that past.
The Fountain-Tallman Museum covers the Gold Rush era, while the remarkable Wakamatsu Farm a few kilometres north marks the first Japanese settlement in North America. The surrounding El Dorado wine country and apple orchards make it a worthwhile destination in its own right, not just a pit stop.