It’s easy to spend a few days visiting the San Luis Obispo County coast and wonder where the time went.
With many things to see and do, it’s also possible to simply relax by watching a sunset or sipping wine at a tasting room near the ocean.
Those who want to see animals can get close-up views of elephant seals near Hearst Castle in San Simeon or dig for clams at Pismo Beach.
The San Luis Obispo County coast is close enough to the Bay Area for a midweek or weekend visit. It’s a three-hour drive from San Jose, and four hours from San Francisco.
Highway 1 is the main artery and Hearst Castle is the top attraction. Designed by Bay Area architect Julia Morgan, the former home of media mogul William Randolph Hearst attracts over 800,000 visitors a year as a state park.
Four miles to the north of Hearst Castle is Piedras Blancas, a rocky beach and year-round home to a colony of elephant seals. Visitors can park in a lot and walk a few hundred yards to see the lumbering beasts and get close enough to see their whiskers. In the winter, the seals mate and give birth and in the summer, they lie in the sun and do little. Observers who stick around a few minutes may see them flicking sand, biting each other, and noisily moving toward the water.
A few miles further south, near Cambria, zebras and deer can be seen grazing behind fences at Hearst Castle along Highway 1. The African animals are descendants of those that Hearst once kept in a zoo on the site.
Many Hearst Castle tourists stop for the night in the town of Cambria, which has many charms, including a one-mile boardwalk along beautiful Moonstone Beach.
Following a drive south through foothills, there’s another beach in Cayucos, a small town on Estero Bay. It has an Old West-style main street with a few restaurants, shops and a pier. Its slogan is the “Last great California beach town.”
Further south is Morro Bay, known for its famed volcanic rock and an adjacent harbor full of small craft boats. It’s not hard to spot harbor seals swimming here. Tourists can take harbor boat cruises or rent kayaks along the waterfront. Morro Bay’s downtown, a few blocks inland, has a number of funky shops and restaurants.
Highway 1 detours inland from Morro Bay to downtown San Luis Obispo and then becomes Highway 101 for a stretch south to Pismo Beach. Many travelers will stop for a spell in SLO, which has a popular downtown with a mission, a meandering creek and lively restaurants near Higuera Street.
Those looking for more coast may head south to Pismo Beach, which has a wide beach, a pier and an anbundance of shops and restaurants. People walking on the beach may find clams and harvest them if they have a sports fishing license. The 80th annual Clam Festival is Oct. 17-18.
Information on touring Hearst Castle can be found at hearstcastle.org.