Only California has a coastline of such length and diversity. California coast trails offer hikes to wetlands, along bluffs, across white sand beaches, around bays, across islands, to lighthouses and through redwood forests.

Hikers on California Coast Trails will find days, weekends and weeks of exploration and recreation along one of the most unique environments on earth. Coast trails lead to dozens of state beaches, marine refuges and reserves. Some hikes travel a little big inland through the mountains of Big Sur, the Santa Cruz Mountains, the hills around San Francisco and the steep King Range way up in Humboldt County.

While you hike along the coast, you’ll likely be walking on the California Coastal Trail, a 1,600-mile path of interconnecting beach, bluff and mountain trails that extends from the border of Mexico to the border with Oregon.

Hikers will enjoy meeting up with colonies of boisterous elephant seals at Point Ano Nuevo State Reserve, trekking the timeless Guadalupe Dunes, meandering through the redwoods of Big Sur and Redwood National Park.

Millions of visitors a year drive through Malibu, Monterey, Mendocino and a hundred more communities on scenic Highway 1. The long, winding road gives drivers and their passengers visual inspiration from the glorious landscapes and seascapes glimpsed through windshields.

A more intimate connection can be made by hiking California Coast trails, getting close-up views of that otter grabbing mussels off the rocks, that cormorant diving for a fish. A little effort yields big rewards: wildflowers, wildlife, and wildlife hidden from the highway.

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