The final stop of our road-trip was 4 nights in San Francisco – although we were spending two nights north of the city and then two nights near the airport. We had a couple of hours drive from Santa Cruz to our Air BNB north of San Francisco so decided to drive the coastal route and stop off at various locations.

Ano Nuevo State Park

Ano Nuevo State Park has hiking trails and a colony of elephant seals on one of its beaches so we thought it would be the perfect place to stop. We followed the park trail – which was quite a long hike across sand dunes to the viewing platform where we were able to see the seals.

^{Views of the coastline from the trail}

Although the seals were in distance we were able to use binoculars to see them. There was also a ranger present who was able to answer any questions we had.

^{Elephant seals on the beach}

The is an island off the coast (Ano Nuevo Island) with the remains of an old lighthouse and it is full of birds which we also watched using the binoculars.

^{Viewing point on the trail.}

On the way back to the car we wandered down to one of the beaches for a short walk – it was deserted.

^{Beach Time!}

Pigeon Point Lighthouse

Our next stop was Pigeon Point Lighthouse which was just 10 minutes further up the road. Pigeon Point Lighthouse is one of the tallest lighthouses in the USA and was built in 1871. We parked up and had a look at the outside of the lighthouse.

We then made our way down to the beach which was very rocky but there were lots of rock pools for us to explore – Stu, Tom & Izzy found loads of crabs in the pools.

^{Exploring the rock pools}

Baker Beach

Our final stop of the day was Baker Beach in San Francisco as it provides beautiful views of the Golden Gate Bridge. We made our way along the beach to the rocks at the north end to take some photos.

^{Baker Beach}

We realised it was the first time we had seen the Golden Gate Bridge not covered in mist. We also couldn’t understand why we hadn’t visited the beach on our last visit as it was lovely and quiet with the most amazing views. We then headed to our AirBNB for the next couple of nights.