Drivin' down the 101, California here we come.

A tale of two Type-A personalities with nothing but a car, a guidebook and three days to get across California...

Here are the long overdue pics from the road-trip which followed my trip to San Francisco to visit friends after a chemistry conference. Hopefully this post will inspire you to do something different for your next holiday, and even serve as a guide for anyone thinking of doing an American road-trip.

My friend and I who normally plan things to death just did not have time to plan this trip, and it was the best thing that could have happened to us. The feeling of adventure was really exhilarating  and not having to rush anywhere and spending our time as we wished was very liberating.

Highways 101 and 1 run pretty much along the entire west coast of America, and our plan was to hop on near San Francisco and drive south to Los Angeles where I would catch a flight back to London. Along the way there were loads of sweet little towns whose names I had heard in 60s surf songs.

First stop was "Surf City" Santa Cruz with its spooky, faded amusement park on the boardwalk; and the fish canning-town of Monterey which is filled with amazing vintage Americana shops. The famous American novel Cannery Row by John Steinbeck was based here.

Amusement park in Santa Cruz and vintage shops in Monterey

Next was the upmarket town of Carmel with it's beautiful beach houses and one of the area's older missions, Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo. When the Spanish colonised the area in the 1700s they set up missions to spread Catholicism. The missions were connected by El Camino Real, or the Royal Road and were separated by a day's journey by horseback on this road. Highway 101 goes more or less along El Camino Real. It was very interesting to explore the history of a place on the opposite side of the globe to where I'm from.

The Carmel mission

After having our fill of seaside architecture, sea-spray, fog and Spanish ruins we pulled into Pacific Grove to find a place to stay for the night. We had very low expectations and thought we'd have to pay a lot to stay in an ugly motel given that we had no reservations and showed up on the night. We were even prepared to sleep in the car if our motel turned out to be run by Norman Bates (I watch too many horror movies to expect anything less).

Postbox in Pacific Grove

We called up one of the places that sounded appealing in our guidebook and went straight over. Imagine our surprise when we found that our affordable room was in a National Historic Landmark.

Centrella Inn is a sweet little Victorian B&B, with a wholesome breakfast and cheerful staff who even left cookies out at night. To me it felt like a cross between a doll house and the house on the Morgan ranch from The Ring (again, too many horror movies, but this was a winning combination). Our stay put us in a great mood to start our next day of road tripping along Big Sur.

Big Sur with McWay Falls (left)

Big Sur is a beautiful stretch of coast with azure waves crashing on steep cliffs on one side, and giant redwood forests on the other. There are lots of natural wonders to stop off and look at, like the beach with purple sand caused by manganate in the rocks, and a rare waterfall which falls directly onto beach sand (pictured above left).

We stopped in a nature reserve to take a walk in a giant redwood forest:

Giant redwood forest along Big Sur

The largest of these incredible Sequoiadendron giganteum grow nearly a hundred meters (311 ft) tall. Amazing, but brace yourself, because the oldest one is 3500 YEARS OLD!

Giant redwood brought out my inner tree hugger

We spent the rest of the day winding along the dramatic coastline, listening to Fleet Foxes and reflecting on how it was that the two of us South Africans came to meet up 10 000 miles away from home. 

Big Sur

As we wound down from Big Sur we encountered a beach which at first looked like it was covered in rocks, which actually turned out to be elephant seals. These seals really look like they live the good life, except for the males having those hideous nose probosci.

Not rocks but elephant seals

At the place we parked our car to get a look at the elephant seals we were confronted by some bold little rodents, henceforth known as Cheeky Beach Squirrels.

Cheeky Beach Squirrels

After Big Sur we thought we would settle down for the night and found ourselves in the wine country of Paso Robles. Again using our guidebook we randomly phoned up a bed and breakfast and made our way over to something called the Wild Coyote Estate wine farm. This is what awaited us:

Wild Coyote Estate wine farm and guesthouse

Again we could not believe our luck at finding an affordable place to stay at the last minute. Our accommodation was in a beautifully furnished adobe-style chalet on the wine farm. We were given a complimentary bottle of wine from the farm, and when we though the night couldn't get any better, we found that we had the hot tub to ourselves and spent our time stargazing into the incredibly clear night sky. The next morning we were treated to a beautiful homemade breakfast in our courtyard, overlooking a Syrah vineyard.

Wine country

I loved all the cute rows of postboxes

Next we made our way through the towns of Southern California ("SoCo", I love how Americans and Aussies have this ability to abbreviate everything):  San Louis Obispo and Pismo Beach. I can imagine somebody calls them SanLoPo and Pisbo.

The scene in Pismo Beach

Because of California's famous surf culture I had always imagined the beaches were idyllic so we went to dip our toes in the Pacific Ocean. To my horror it was absolutely freezing, seriously ice-cold. I went ankle deep and my feet started cramping from the pain, it was shocking. It made me appreciate how lucky we are in South Africa where people surf without wet suits in the warm Indian Ocean.

Pismo Beach

I loved the iconic flickering neon signs we saw as we made our way south. In fact the very first motel in the world was from this region...

One of the last towns we saw was Santa Barbara. My friend and I had a strange desire to see the place because in South Africa in the 80s and early 90s when there wasn't much else on TV, we watched a B-grade soap opera called Santa Barbara.

Santa Barbara

Our adventure came to an end as LA welcomed us with smog and traffic as we made our way to the dreadful LAX airport. Having decided it would be prudent to check-in in good time, I found myself trapped in a waiting room for three hours, with nothing but a shop selling soggy $17 sandwiches and LAX merchandise. The only redeeming part of this experience was that because the flight was delayed, the first class passengers came to wait at the boarding gate with all us commoners. As a result I found myself sitting across Shirley Manson from Garbage. Aware of how lame it would be to strike up a conversation with her about how I saw Garbage in Johannesburg many years ago, I decided instead to stare at her over the top of Gulliver's Travels which I was pretending to read.

One observation from this trip of a lifetime is that judging by the road signs, California is a very dangerous place. Somehow though we managed to survive without any attacks by wild animals, encounters with dangerous plants or extreme weather conditions

California is not for sissies

I was very restrained and didn't do much shopping, and just collected a few trinkets: a vintage label from the fish-canning town; some hearts I cut out of the maps we used, for my heart wall; a confused little Democrat/Republican pin; and a vintage doily which I'll add to my collection from around the world, which I have big plans for.

Road-trip souvenirs

I think that this road-trip has really changed my approach to traveling. I used to head straight to the city when in a new country, but now that I've traveled to quite a few capital cities in developed countries, and live in one of the world's largest, the concrete jungle is less and less appealing . This trip showed me that there's a lot to see beyond the museums, high streets and the reach of public transport. In fact the main streets of just about any developed city look the same because they are covered in the same branded shops and fast-food outlets. But what's really unique is the natural beauty of a country. This realisation helped me plan subsequent trips to rural Wales and France this year, when I skipped out the capitals completely.

How have your travel experiences changed with age and experience? And can anyone recommend another US road-trip route which is good in early Spring? I'm thinking of New Orleans...