Is Big Sur Walkable?

Big Sur, Yosemite, or Tahoe? Best activities/itinerary?

• Hi :) My boyfriend and I are planning a trip to either Big Sur, Yosemite, or Tahoe this spring. I was leaning more towards Big Sur because I've never been there before; does anyone have any preference out of the three and if so, do you have any great activity or itinerary ideas? Any help is very much appreciated! Thanks! :)

• Answer:

  All are great. I would actually steer you away from Big Sur, because it doesn't have as much to do for a longer trip (which it sounds like you're talking about). It's more of a day or weekend destination. If you do go, one of the best sights is McWay Beach at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. You can see a waterfall cascading onto the beach (but the beach itself is off-limits). You might also want to eat or just have a drink at Nepenthe, a restaurant with a nice view of the coastline and ocean. There's also some good hiking inland to a waterfall at Julia Pfeiffer Burns. A different state park, Pfeiffer Big Sur state park, has a little bit of a different landscape that's also nice. The Big Sur River runs through it. It's not an impressive river, but it is very natural and undisturbed. If you want to actually walk on a beach, Pfeiffer Beach is a good one. It's a little hard to find - there's a turn off the highway and then a couple miles of narrow road, but you don't need 4WD or anything. If you've never been to Yosemite, you should definitely go. There are a large number of impressive waterfalls in the valley. In my opinion the best are Yosemite Falls and Vernal Falls. Yosemite Falls has height, Vernal Falls has a large volume of water (and lots of mist). It's easy an easy hike to the bottom of Yosemite Falls, a moderate hike to the bottom and top of Vernal Falls, and a strenuous hike to the top of Yosemite Falls. In addition to the valley, you might want to check out the Tioga Pass area for a different landscape. It's got open, treeless, grassy alpine meadows. Lake Tahoe is really cool. One limitation is that the whole thing is not a park. A lot of the shoreline is private property. Some parts are pretty urban, other parts are private homes and private beaches. The best parts I've seen are in the southwest corner of the lake. There's Emerald Bay, a fjord-like small bay connected by a narrow strait to the main body of the lake. It has a state park and a couple state-run campgrounds. You can access it from Vikingsholm, which is a historic Scandinavian-inspired mansion you can tour. A great beach is at D. L. Bliss State Park. Between those, the Rubicon Trail runs along the shoreline through forests and along the tops of cliffs overlooking the water. I have also heard of some good beaches on the Nevada side, such as Secret Beach, but as the name implies, these are not organized as parks and are harder to access.