California | JOURNEYS
There's been something audaciously alluring about a road trip since before we even figured out how to lay bitumen on the ground. Jack Kerouac put it best in his 1957 celebration of escapism, On the Road: “I was surprised … by how easy the act of leaving was and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibility.” And nowhere on Earth epitomises this feeling more than California's Highway One – a 1055-kilometre journey along almost the entire California coastline.
But we're not alone in wanting to ride this famous roadway, particularly during the northern summer. And so, done best, this iconic journey requires road-trippers to (occasionally, at least) leave the well-trodden path to find places less visited, but all the more special for it.
I'm back on Highway One after a two-year hiatus during which California was a place I visited only through a TV screen. With my top pulled down and my radio on (to borrow from Don Henley and his Boys of Summer), I opt to drive north-to-south from San Francisco to LA so that I'm always on the ocean side of the highway. Let's drive.
NORTH OF SAN FRANCISCO
Contrary to popular belief, Highway One doesn't end in San Francisco (SF) but instead continues for another 300 kilometres. I land in SF,, but it's the tiny hamlet of Jenner that wows me. Here, the Russian River empties into the Pacific beside long, deserted beaches of grey sand and driftwood. I settle in on a picnic table at Cafe Aquatica, watching seals frolic as a local plays , and gorge myself on fresh crab rolls. The road twists and turns from here (they call this part Dramamine Drive after the motion sickness medicine for a reason), scaling coastal ranges and offering views from high up that make me want to pull over and applaud.
