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PCH: Monterey to Big Sur

🚗 Driving 8 stops Free
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🚗8 mapped stops

PCH: Monterey to Big Sur — a driving tour in the California region.

Stops on This Tour (8)

  1. 1
    Carmel-by-the-Sea (Start) Clint Eastwood was mayor here in 1986. The town has no street addresses, no mail delivery, no streetlights, and no high heels (technically).
  2. 2
    Point Lobos State Reserve Robert Louis Stevenson called it "the greatest meeting of land and water in the world." Sea otters float in the kelp below.
  3. 3
    Bixby Bridge Most photographed bridge in California. Built 1932. Workers hauled cement down cliffs on mules. Cost $200,000 — about what it costs to repave a mile of LA freeway today.
  4. 4
    Andrew Molera State Park The Big Sur River meets the Pacific here. Monarch butterflies winter in the sycamore groves from October to February.
  5. 5
    Pfeiffer Beach Purple sand from manganese garnet. The keyhole rock arch catches the sunset through its center in December and January.
  6. 6
    McWay Falls 80-foot waterfall drops directly onto a beach. One of only two tidal waterfalls in California. Visible from the trail but the beach is closed.
  7. 7
    Nepenthe Restaurant Overlook Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth bought this land in 1944 for $167. Henry Miller drank here. The view is 40 miles of coastline.
  8. 8
    Julia Pfeiffer Burns SP (South) End of the classic Big Sur stretch. South of here, the road was built by convict labor in the 1930s. Some prisoners liked it so much they stayed.

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Tour content is for entertainment and general information only. Verify practical details independently. Not a substitute for official guidance.