This Palm Springs travel guide is for first-time visitors who want the classic desert getaway: midcentury design, mountain views, pool time, a tram ride to the alpine forest, and one or two easy day trips. Palm Springs is compact, sunny, and easy to explore. This Palm Springs travel guide helps Read more…
If you are looking for things to do in Santa Cruz, start with this: this classic California beach town packs a historic seaside amusement park, a working wharf, surf culture, redwood forests, and a walkable downtown into one compact coastline. You can cover the highlights in a day, but two Read more…
This Disneyland guide is built for one job: getting you through the planning decisions in the right order. Tickets and reservations come first, because without both, you do not get in. Then comes the real choice — which park gets your energy — followed by the rides worth your wait, Read more…
San Francisco rewards a plan — and punishes the lack of one. Hills, fog, sold-out Alcatraz ferries, and a cable car line that can eat an hour of your morning mean the difference between a great trip and a frustrating one comes down to priorities. This San Francisco travel guide Read more…
If you are looking for things to do in Pismo Beach, start with this: this classic Central Coast beach town packs a 1,200-foot pier, wide sandy beaches, the famous Oceano Dunes, a monarch butterfly grove, clam chowder, and SLO wine country into one easy, walkable coastline. It is one of Read more…
This Los Angeles travel guide is built for one thing: helping you actually enjoy LA instead of just driving through it. Los Angeles is enormous, spread out, and easy to get wrong. Pick the wrong home base or stack far-apart stops in one day, and you will sit in traffic. Read more…
Death Valley National Park is the largest national park in the lower 48 states – over 3 million acres of desert valleys, salt flats, sand dunes, canyons, and mountain ranges. It is also one of the hottest places on Earth, and that heat is not a detail. It is the Read more…
If you are looking for things to do in Monterey, start with this: the city packs a world-class aquarium, a historic waterfront, great seafood, sea otters, and one of California’s most scenic drives into a compact, walkable peninsula. You can cover the highlights in a day, but two days is Read more…
If you are looking for things to do in Solvang, here is the short version: this tiny Danish village in the Santa Ynez Valley is one of the most charming day trips in California. Half-timbered buildings, windmills, Danish bakeries, wine tasting rooms, and a historic mission — all within a Read more…
Hearst Castle sits on a hilltop above San Simeon, on California’s Central Coast, and it is one of the most unusual places you can visit in the state. It is part mansion, part art museum, part architectural experiment, and the only way to see it is on a guided tour. Read more…