We didn’t plan this trip much. All we knew was that we wanted to:
- Be spontaneous,
- Not be stressed about planning,
- Be in nature,
- Eventually, end up in an area up north where we can see the redwood trees.
And how did we do that? Well, we hopped in a car one morning and started driving. We knew that we had 5 days for this trip and some areas that we wanted to check out. Since I am a forever passenger princess, I was tasked with searching and booking the hotels we would stay the night of, while my partner was driving. And so it began…
Day 1, San Jose -> Sonoma County
The trip started in San Jose, early in the morning. After a quick stop in a local bánh mì store, Walmart for some snacks, and Starbucks we kicked off the ride.
Our first destination of the day was Point Reyes.
We decided to drive through San Francisco because I had heard that Lombard Street was in full bloom at the time we were there. The moment we entered Downtown SF, we were welcomed by the sight of a man jumping out of a window and running away with some stolen goods. What could be more SF than this, right?
When we got to Lombard Street, the views were definitely worth driving through the SF traffic.
I’m still fascinated by how steep the streets of SF are. 🤯 Can’t believe the last time I was there, I climbed those hills, on foot! 😅 It was difficult even for the car to move.
From there, we continued the drive towards Point Reyes. We drove through the Golden Gate Bridge and enjoyed its majesty, as well as the views of the SF skyline.
As we exited the Bridge, we landed on Highway 1. Little did we know that later this trip we would actually end up at the end of it. (SPOILER ALERT!)
It was already noon, and we had around an hour left until we reached Point Reyes. Lucky for us, there was an In-n-Out on the next exit, so we stocked up on some burgers and fries, before heading to nature.
As we were driving forward to Point Reyes, we already got a sneak peek of what the rest of the trip will be.
Beautiful blue ocean on the left of us…
… and endless greenery on the right of us.
Our reason for going to Point Reyes was to see the Alamere Falls, but by the time we got there, we realized that it was already too late and we wouldn’t make it back before sunset. We didn’t want to risk it and hike in the dark. Instead, we settled to just walk in the Park. Halfway to the waterfalls, there was a lake and that was our new goal.
On the way there, as we were soaking in the picturesque scenery, we opened our burgers and prayed that they wouldn’t attract any wildlife. 😅 🐻 We also got quite a few side eyes/comments from fellow nature lovers, who were coming back from their hike and were extremely hungry. 😃
The whole hike took us, about 2.5 to 3 hrs, mostly because we were stopping every 50 meters, to take photos. Here’s some of my collection: 📷
In the last photo, you can see the lake we ended up visiting, instead of the waterfalls. A bit underwhelming, but a day in nature is a day in nature and I take it as a W. 😃
As we were driving to Point Reyes, I booked a place to stay, in Bodega (Sonoma County), near Highway 1. It had very local vibes, and the staff was super friendly and helpful. It was a retreat/spa kind of hotel and I wish we had more than one night to spend here. We were welcomed by a super friendly staff and a glass of local Napa wine. Later in the evening, they had organized a small s’mores get-together for all the guests in the backyard, by the bonfire.
Day 2, Bodega -> Fort Bragg
Day 2 was a busy one. Not only that we have to drive more up north, but we also wanted to do one more hike, in a park near Mendocino, called Russian Gulch State Park.
With all that in mind, we woke up relatively early and went to have breakfast right away. No time to lose! The breakfast was included in the hotel, as part of our booking, and it was good enough to keep us full until we reached Mendocino. That was stop number 1 of the day.
Once done with breakfast, we packed our bags, and back in the car, driving on Highway 1, toward Mendocino. As we continued driving, the views were just getting better and better. No wonder they call this route the scenic route.
Less than 30 minutes into the drive, we stopped by this beach and watched the brave north Californians catching some waves. I would love to come back here someday, when I’m a more advanced surfer, and not scared of the cold ocean. 🤙🏻
After some driving, we reached the area of Mendocino! We stopped a little bit before the city itself, just so that we could enjoy the views from there. We were welcomed by the blue ocean and even bluer skies!
We then stopped by the town, for some lunch, to recharge our batteries, before our upcoming hike. The Russian Gulch State Park is about a 15-ish minute drive north of Mendocino. We first stopped by to look over the bridge, which we had just driven on it.
Just around the corner was our next point of interest, the Sinking Hole. It was a good reminder of how beautiful (and powerful) mother nature is. 😍
Just like that an hour has passed and we haven’t even started our hike. The hike, yet again, was to a waterfall. This time we made sure to have enough time and get there (and back) before sunset. We parked our car near the start of the hike and off we went!
As we just entered the trail, I was surprised by the surroundings. Firstly, shortly after our start, I saw some of the redwood trees. They were TALL! And these weren’t even the tallest that we’d see. 🤯 These were just baby redwoods. (For those of you who don’t know, the redwood trees are the tallest trees in the world.)
Secondly, whenever I go hiking in Europe the trails are pretty clean. There are no trees or branches on the road. That wasn’t the case here. When a tree falls, for whatever reason, it is left there. Even if it was blocking the trail. Later I learned that this is intentional because the soil was being fed from the fallen tree itself! Very interesting!
As we were hopping over fallen trees and being easily distracted by their height, we reached the waterfall. Even though it was pretty small, it was still a nice view and a perfect rest point.
We took the same trail back, but that didn’t make the walk boring at all! Some so many new trees and sights caught our eyes.
With that, we wrapped up the last activity in this park and headed toward our accommodation.
The night before, we looked into what to do in Mendocino and the area around, and we realized that there are a lot of activities that would be fun to do and places to check out. That’s why we decided to stay there for 2 nights. I didn’t find any accommodation in Mendocino itself, so we stayed in another town nearby, called Fort Bragg.
We got some Mcdonalds and snacks from Safeway and arrived at our accommodation right on time for sunset. I booked this lovely hotel by the road, that had ocean views. We called the day a success and celebrated it with a beer watching over the sunset.
Day 3 — Mendocino area
During our trips, we always try to have at least one day that doesn’t require too much energy from us. And that was day 3 of this trip for us.
Even though the weather wasn’t the best, it was very windy, we signed up to do a kayaking tour in Mendocino and learn more about the ocean life in the area. The group wasn’t too big, around 10 people. The guide was a local, that knew his way around the waves. They provided us with wet suites and phone water protectors and off we went.
The wind, and with that the waves too, didn’t stop our experienced guide to show some of the local caves too.
After a couple of hours in the kayaks, we finished the tour and headed back to shore. Our hunger was already there so we headed to a pier in Fort Bragg to have some local seafood! 😍 We had a crab, clam chowder, and oysters. Everything was so fresh, that I was able to taste the ocean. 😂 So happy that we didn’t have time earlier during this trip to go to SF and have my regular clam chowder there because this one was sooo much more delicious!
After lunch, we went for a short walk around the harbor. Unexpectedly, we saw some seals, just chilling there. Again, very similar to Pier 39 in SF. 😅
The rest of the day was pretty chill. We didn’t do much except go for a short walk by the ocean, near our hotel. This probably wasn’t the wisest idea from our side, since the wind had picked up so much, that I thought I could fly away. The sunset was yet again AMAZING, so it made it all worth it. 😃
Day 4 — Fort Bragg -> Humboldt Redwoods State Park -> San Jose
Last night we had a realization, that even though we planned to drive back to San Jose on Day 5, probably it will be better for our wallets to simply drive back on Day 4. With that, we shortened our trip by a day and spent that extra time with friends and family back in San Jose.
Well rested we hit the road again. Our only goal was to see the giant trees in Humboldt Redwoods State Park, enjoy the ride, and do as many stops in nature as our hearts desired. We navigated to the Avenue of Giants, which was supposed to be somewhere on the south side of the Park.
As we headed north, we already noticed a bit of a change of scenery. The blue ocean slowly disappeared from our sight, but it was still very green and beautiful! The trees started being taller and taller. As we were driving, I noticed a sign on the side of the road, that said — Drive Thru Tree. I instantly Googled to see what that was, and the place got my approval. ✅ We took a detour and went there. It was a small park, with a big, fat, tall tree that had a cutout in the middle, and cars could drive through. Pretty interesting!
After we drove through the tree, we spent some time walking around the park, looking at some wood artwork, stopping by the gift shop, and taking pics of us with tall trees. Here’s me in comparison to the tree we drove through.
After a well-spent hour or so in the park, we continued the drive up north. And just like that, 3 days after we hopped on Highway 1 north from SF, we reached the endpoint of this road.
We joined on Highway 101 and followed the navigation to the Avenue of Giants. Well, not fully. 😅 Google Maps was giving us one direction, but the signs on 101 gave us another. We decided to follow the ones from the signs because it seemed a quieter, less busy road. It didn’t take us long to start seeing the redwood trees. They were standing on both sides of the road.
Since the road was not busy at all, we were able to stop wherever we felt like it and go to the forest on the side of the road to explore and see what was around.
Here are some sights from the Avenue of Giants:
The drive continued to Humboldt Redwood State Park, where we did a short lunch break before we started our small hike on the Founders Grove Nature Loop Trail. At the beginning of the trail, there is the Founders Tree, which at one point was the tallest tree on Earth. Today the tree is 105.5m (346.1 ft) tall and 3.87m (12.7 ft) in diameter. This photo can not do justice to how TALL this tree is. 😍
The sad thing is that this part of California is prone to a lot of wildfires, and that also affects this park, and its trees. Some trees that survived the fires in the past were standing tall to remind us how crazy mother nature is and to take good care of it. 🤗
There were also a lot of fallen trees, that were left there to feed the soil and help other trees to grow and bloom.
We spent around 2 hours in this State Park and slowly we headed back to San Jose. The road was pretty straightforward, Highway 101 all the way. 🚙
This was a really nice trip in nature, especially since we are mostly in front of our laptops most of the year. Yet another bucket list item is done — see the redwood trees. ✅
Till next time NorCal! 👋
