Big Sur village

This is as close to a town as the coast gets, two miles of it along the river under the redwoods, and everything for forty miles in either direction comes through here. In my day the mail, the news and half the gossip did too, and I wrote the lodges down in the order they came: Big Sur Lodge, Redwood Lodge, Ripplewood Lodge, Walker's Camp, and the River Inn, which was the post office. Ripplewood is still here, cabins on the river under the redwoods and a café by the road.

Take it slowly. There is a lot in a short stretch. The Big Sur River Inn was the first hotel and restaurant on the coast, the Pfeiffer family's Apple Pie Inn in the thirties, and it has a lawn that runs down to the river and chairs set in the river itself, where you sit with your feet in the water and a glass in your hand.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner on the deck, live music on the lawn on summer Sundays, a burrito bar in the general store and ice cream from an old bus. Fernwood has a tavern with a redwood growing through the deck, burgers and tater tots and live bands, and behind it cabins, tent cabins, glamping tents and campsites on both banks of the river. Glen Oaks is the old motor lodge made over in wood and glass, with cabins in the redwoods by the river and the Big Sur Roadhouse for breakfast and lunch on a patio in the trees.

The state park, with the Big Sur Lodge inside it, is at the far end. Fuel here if you need it. It is a long way to the next pump, either way.