Sequoia National Park
The Giant Sequoia Forest between San Francisco and Los Angeles is a luxury. Thousand-year-old trees, among the most beautiful specimens in the country, quiet and welcoming monoliths, reach the garden Canyon of the Kings dizzying heights. 80 meters high and 30 meters in circumference for adults. To discover the giants up close, you must traverse winding roads, official hiking trails and treat yourself to a quiet night in a cabin or lodge (visitsequoia.com). The atmosphere is rustic, but the essential comfort on board.
Price: EUR 35 per vehicle (valid for 7 days). €30 per motorcycle.
An alternative or addition to nature in North Sacramento. Follow the 101 to Avenue of the Giants. An epic, 31-mile drive through Humboldt Redwoods State Park. The height of the sequoias here exceeds 110 meters. A mind-blowing show that calls out for the best in tree-hugging. (visitredwoods.com)
Napa Valley
About a hundred kilometers north of San Francisco, near the Pacific Ocean Napa Valley represents one of the world’s largest wine regions, populated by more than 400 vineyards, covered in autumn with a yellow-orange mantle and perfumed with freshly cut grapes. Tradition dictates a tour of the most beautiful cellars on California State Route 29, which passes by the most famous homes, or on the Silverado Trail that parallels it, and a tour on the Wine Train, a 150-year-old historical train, a remix of the Orient Express. , which offers gourmet cuisine and excellent wine tastings (winetrain.com). The region boasts Merlot, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon and has several gourmet restaurants, The French Laundry, three Michelin macaroons and chef Thomas Keller’s garden among the most famous.
Optional. neighboring Sonoma Valley, a region twice the size of Napa Valley, with more affordable wines and which hosts several cellars with exceptional architecture, such as Aperture Cellars (aperture-cellars.com).
Death Valley
Camping season in Death Valley National Park (Mojave Desert) opens in October. Idyllic temperatures (between 20 and 25 degrees) that convince you to drive around the winding and rocky roads of this fabulous valley 450 kilometers northeast of Los Angeles (a 4X4 rental should prevent any mishaps). It is irreplaceable eureka dunes emerge like a mirage and enjoy a slow and gradual ascent (at the risk of suffocation). We will continue to the Devil’s Golf Course, a salt and dry lake that today is covered with crusts of crystallized and sharp salt, see Badwater, a place that is -86 meters below sea level and that reveals its salt pools, ancient millennia the inheritance. annual lake and contemplate the mountains at sunset.
Price: EUR 35 per vehicle (valid for 7 days).
Palm Springs and Joshua Tree Desert
The exhausting summer heat has passed (45 degrees this year), Palm Springs ideally found again in the off-season. In addition to the traditional mid-century modernist house tour, make an appointment for a wacky visit to Robo Lights, artist Kenny Irwin’s open-air museum populated by robots, automatons and crazy machines, perfect for Halloween or Christmas. . Golf is also much more applicable this time of year as the resorts at Desert Hot Springs.
Optional. The Joshua Tree Wilderness 40 minutes from Palm Springs offers its breathtaking cactus fields. And along the Salton Sea, 1 hour 30 minutes from Palm Springs, Salvation Mountain (salvationmountain.us), a hippie-monumental work by artist Leonard Knight, deserves a long thought.
Great Sword
lovers of trips, Highway 1, which runs along the entire Pacific coast, offers an epic road trip between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Between the cities of Carmel and San Simeon, the Big Sur region, narrated by John Steinbeck, Henry Miller or Jack Kerouac, offers about 140 kilometers of exceptional landscapes intersected by cliffs and verdant mountains that drop steeply to the ocean. Dizzy, the road passes through the theater Bixby Bridgewhich the small parking lot at its northern end allows for photography brings to the nature reserve Whale Lobos and its opulent cove makes it possible to reach Pfeiffer Beacha romantic beach home to Keyhole Rock, Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park and its redwood colony or Piedras Blancas Marine Reserve, home to hundreds of elephant seals…
Good to know. The best hotels on Highway 1 focus on this route, such as the architectural Post Ranch Inn (postranchinn.com) or the Ventana Big Sur (ventanabigsur.com) and its luxury cabins in the middle of the forest.
Mammoth Lakes
If you come here mainly in the winter to ski and snowboard on some snow-capped mountains, then Mammoth Lakes make a perfect place in autumn, its forests with golden and orange leaves and their reflections on the lakes, offering landscapes of pure beauty. In the off-season, a small number of tourists come here to bathe in nature, hike (especially following the “Condemned Lake Loop” or “Crystal Lake Trail”), bask in the sound of magical waterfalls, climb a horse, fish. , to learn hiking or golf. The Westin Monache Resort and Villa Lodge are the best accommodation options.
In addition : the national park of Yosemite, its sequoia forests and high mountains are about 45 minutes from Mammoth Lakes. Some areas, however, may be closed to the public during the first hours of snowfall.
Source: Le Figaro
