11 Of The Most Adorable Small Towns In California
Some California towns are pretty enough that you spend the day just wandering the main street. In Solvang, you pass half-timbered houses and working windmills on every block. Carmel-by-the-Sea has tiny cottages under twisted cypress a block from the beach. Ferndale has a whole downtown of painted Victorian houses, some trimmed like wedding cakes. Cambria is a coast town below pine hills, with a cove of wave-smoothed stones.
Idyllwild
The people of Idyllwild elected a golden retriever as honorary mayor, and Mayor Max III still holds the post. He greets visitors most days from his own parking spot downtown, usually in a custom necktie. The town is high in the San Jacinto Mountains, where the trail network is hard to beat. On the Strawberry Creek Trail, probably the easiest around, you hike beside a creek with steady uphills and wide views. Walking among the pines and ferns with the creek trickling nearby is its own kind of therapy. Hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail cross North America and pass right by town.
The Ernie Maxwell Scenic Trail is a gentle out-and-back with clean air and long views. When you need a caffeine hit before all that walking, start at Red Kettle, where the locals are happy to talk your ear off.
Ojai
Bart's Books in Ojai, open since the 1960s, bills itself as the world's largest outdoor bookstore. The store stocks more than 130,000 titles, rare out-of-print finds and well-worn paperbacks alike, most kept outside under the open sky. Ojai is in a small valley north of Ventura and east of Santa Barbara. The Ojai Valley Museum, once a Catholic church, tells the valley's history in one compact space. The Ojai Art Center runs movies, plays, and art exhibitions, and every seat in the room is a good one. Nearby, the Ojai Vineyard Tasting Room pours Chardonnay under mountain views.
Cambria
The stones at Moonstone Beach have been tumbled so smooth by the waves that you can cross them without shoes. Wet stones there are faintly iridescent in the sun. Cambria itself is a small town about 35 minutes north of San Luis Obispo on U.S. Highway 1, and its coast walks are some of the most photogenic on the Central Coast at sunrise. Then there is Hearst Castle, the hilltop estate built by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, with 38 bedrooms, 42 bathrooms, a theater, and a beauty salon. For time outdoors, you can walk the Fiscalini Ranch Preserve Bluff Trail through Monterey pine and oak above the sea.
Solvang
Solvang is known as the Danish Capital of America. The town center has half-timbered buildings, thatched roofs, and working windmills. Nowhere else in the United States looks this thoroughly Danish. Mortensen's Danish Bakery, run by a trio of sisters, sets out flaky Danish treats along a display case as long as the room.
After breakfast at Mortensen's, the Solvang Vintage Motorcycle Museum displays a rare collection of machines worth a slow look. The Elverhøj Museum of History & Art tells the story of the town's Danish-American settlers. Come in December for Julefest and its nightly holiday light displays through the streets.
Aptos
At the end of Seacliff State Beach in Aptos, a half-sunk concrete ship lies in the water. The SS Palo Alto was launched in 1919 and towed to Seacliff in 1930, and beachgoers still gather on the uncrowded sand around its broken hull. In Aptos, redwood trails and surf breaks are minutes apart, so you can do both in a day. Before the redwoods, make an espresso stop at Cat & Cloud and settle in with the locals. Cap the visit with a passionfruit lemonade at Mentone, a barn-like spot built for lingering.
Carmel-by-the-Sea
Carmel Beach is a curve of soft white sand and twisted cypress below the town, one of the prettiest town beaches in the country. It is a short walk from the center of Carmel-by-the-Sea, and dogs are welcome off-leash under voice control. Do not skip the Clinton Walker House on the sand, one of the few oceanfront homes Frank Lloyd Wright ever designed. Just south, Pebble Beach Golf Links hosts the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am every winter and has staged the U.S. Open several times. Close the day with a show at the Sunset Center, two blocks off Ocean Avenue, known for its acoustics.
Ferndale
At Ferndale's signature event, teams push human-powered art machines down a three-day, roughly 50-mile course over pavement, sand, mud, and open water. The Kinetic Grand Championship is the model for copycat races in the United States and Australia. Off the course, the Ferndale Repertory Theatre stages local productions all year, and Golden Gait Mercantile keeps one of the last old-style general stores stocked with candy, hats, antiques, and vintage finds.
On a walk through the historic Ferndale Cemetery, you pass pioneer-era monuments and long views over the hills. The Victorian storefronts downtown are among the best-preserved in California, and the wild Lost Coast lies just past the edge of town.
Oak Glen
Oak Glen is apple country, a cluster of U-pick orchards strung along a five-mile loop in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains. At around 4,700 feet, the air is cool enough for apples that will not grow in the valleys below. Around the town, the San Bernardino National Forest has shade, creeks, and small clear lakes, and the Mojave Desert is on the far side of the range.
Snow Line Orchard has pressed cider here since 1898, which makes it one of Southern California's oldest apple producers. Crowds come for its apple cider donuts, raspberry picking, and wine tasting, and the picnic ground has what the farm bills as the state's oldest Italian chestnut tree. Nearby, the 909-acre Oak Glen Preserve is at the foot of Wilshire Peak, around 4,700 feet, and includes the historic Los Rios Rancho apple farm.
Morro Bay
Morro Rock is 576 feet tall at the mouth of the bay, a volcanic plug that stopped erupting some 23 million years ago. Behind the rock and the sand spit, the water is calm enough for oyster farms to raise Pacific Gold oysters in the cold, nutrient-rich shallows. Weird Al Yankovic worked those waters into an early song about San Luis Obispo, back when he was a Cal Poly student running the campus radio station.
The Morro Bay Estuary is one of the larger and more diverse wetlands on the Central Coast. The Museum of Natural History displays taxidermy of local wildlife, with wide views over the water. Birdwatchers head to Morro Bay State Park on the waterfront, and The Siren downtown serves crisp wings alongside live bands most nights.
Lone Pine
The Alabama Hills are a field of warm, rounded orange rock west of Lone Pine, with the jagged snowy Sierra right behind them. Prospectors named the hills after the Confederate raider CSS Alabama during the Civil War. Hundreds of Westerns have been shot among these boulders and natural arches, and photographers and rock climbers still come for the formations. The Alabama Hills National Scenic Area is about a mile from town.
The Museum of Western Film History, once the Lone Pine Film History Museum, holds posters, stills, and props from the films shot nearby. From town, you can drive Whitney Portal Road up a set of white-knuckle switchbacks to the trailhead for Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States.
Mammoth Lakes
Skiers and snowboarders worship at the base of Mammoth Mountain, an 11,053-foot volcano with one of the largest resorts in the western United States, more than 3,500 acres of skiable terrain. You can ski into late spring here, and plenty of people also come for mountain biking, fishing, and alpine hiking. The Stove turns out home-style plates in big portions, vegan options included.
The Mammoth Museum is inside the Hayden Cabin, an old log cabin by Mammoth Creek packed with sleds, quilts, and hunting trophies. Finish the day with an acai bowl at Elixir Superfood & Juice, which has a long drink list at reasonable prices.
Small Towns Built Around One Thing
Film buffs head to Lone Pine for the Alabama Hills, where hundreds of Westerns were shot. Morro Bay's oyster farms raise Pacific Gold oysters in cold, nutrient-rich water year-round. Apple-pickers fill Oak Glen's hillside orchards every fall. Skiers get more than 3,500 acres of terrain at Mammoth Lakes each winter. In every one of these towns, pick the one thing you came for and build the day around it.
