A brilliant, enduring moment can happen to anyone, any time, anywhere. But if you’re giving me a choice, I’d rather go looking for that moment at dawn on the salt flats of Death Valley.
Or at the base of the Yosemite waterfall.
Or on a busy night in Vancouver’s only Native restaurant.
Or on a southern Baja beach with sunset coming.
What secret thread runs through these places? Well, the same migrating gray whale might show up in Baja or British Columbia, depending on the season. Beyond that, these destinations are all on the West Coast, which we like to think of as our backyard, even though it rises, falls and sprawls for thousands of miles.
We’re spoiled for choice as travelers living in Southern California: The beaches, deserts, mountains, towns, cities and people — some familiar, some startling — all roar for our attention. This list aims to cover 101 West Coast experiences that roared loudest when we showed up, looked and listened.
Ahead you’ll find fresh information on plenty of destinations you’ve long meant to visit or revisit — the half-hidden glories of Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley, the stalls and buskers of Seattle’s Pike Place Market, the rugged slopes of Catalina Island’s back country. And because the West keeps changing, I’m hoping this list will alert you to many places and adventures you’ve never considered before. Maybe that means a weekend of eating your way through the restaurants along Bell Street in Los Alamos, a night of music on the waterfront in downtown San Diego or a steamy sauna on a reconditioned warship in the Inner Harbor of Victoria, British Columbia.
How did we choose? By going everywhere. I have visited 87 of these places, from the southern tip of Baja (which you can reach in a see-through boat) to the forests of British Columbia (where you can tiptoe across a suspension bridge that’s 230 feet above the Capilano River). For the other 14, all in the Pacific Northwest, we’ve relied on contributor Elisa Parhad. We’ve left out a few of the usual L.A. suspects (Disneyland, Disney Hall, the Getty, Griffith Observatory, the Hollywood Bowl and the Santa Monica Pier, for instance), because they’re so well known and close to home. This list starts in the Baja California peninsula and heads north, taking you through California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.
“One cannot be pessimistic about the West. This is the native home of hope,” wrote author Wallace Stegner.
Maybe hope is the thread connecting these places. They raise possibilities — even the scenes of wrongdoing and tragedy. If we meet these destinations with enough humility and curiosity, surely the sights and people will encourage us in ways we can’t imagine now. What’s more inspiring, more hopeful, than a West Coast road?
Now, let’s hit that road, along with the beaches, the rivers and the slopes. Keep an eye out for gray whales. And please, write to christopher.reynolds@latimes.com if you’ve got an idea for a place I should go next — or if you just want to tell me I forgot San Francisco’s cable cars.