Highway 1 is one of the great drives, and it is also two lanes of cliff-edge road where the average speed is far lower than the map implies. Plan around a hundred and fifty miles a day, not three hundred, and the trip becomes a holiday rather than a commute with views.
Direction matters
Drive north to south. The ocean is then on your right, which means every viewpoint and pull-out is on your side of the road and you never cross oncoming traffic to reach one. This is not a small thing over eight hundred kilometres.
A ten-day shape
- San Francisco — two nights, no car. Collect it on the morning you leave.
- Santa Cruz — one night, for the boardwalk and the surf.
- Monterey and Carmel — two nights, with a day for Point Lobos and the aquarium.
- Big Sur — two nights. Book far ahead; there are very few beds and no phone signal.
- San Luis Obispo or Cambria — one night, with Hearst Castle if you want it.
- Santa Barbara — two nights, which is where the trip slows down properly.
- Los Angeles — drop the car at the airport, not downtown.
Big Sur is the reason for the drive. Give it two nights and you will actually see it rather than pass through it.
The stops worth stopping for
Pigeon Point lighthouse at dusk. The elephant seal colony at Piedras Blancas, which is free, enormous and extremely loud. Julia Pfeiffer Burns for the waterfall onto the beach. Point Lobos, which is the best short coastal walk in the state. And Bixby Bridge, early, before the pull-out fills.
Practical realities
Highway 1 closes. Landslides shut sections of Big Sur for months at a time, so check the state transport authority the week before you travel and have an inland alternative via the 101 in mind.
Fuel up before Big Sur — prices inside it are memorable. Book accommodation in Big Sur and Carmel months ahead. Expect coastal fog in June and July, which burns off by midday and is the reason September is the better month.
And leave one afternoon completely unscheduled. On this road, the best hour of the trip is usually a pull-out you had no plans to stop at.