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The Independent UK

Travel

Ellie Seymour

San Luis Obispo: Why you should visit California’s last sleepy stretch of coast, hidden in plain sight

Los Angeles California San Luis Obispo Michelin

“I suddenly realised I was in California. Warm, balmy air – air you can kiss – and palms.”

I thought about these words Jack Kerouac wrote in 1951 as I turned off the state’s famous Highway 1 and followed the road around, the gleaming Pacific Ocean in sight. Everything around me was tinted pastel pink in the early evening light. A liquor store’s neon flickered, sun-faded motel signs promised vacancies, a couple walking arm-in-arm crossed the wide street framed by the rolling Irish Hills. If the perfect sleepy beach town still exists in California, I wondered if I’d found it.

“The secret is out and there’s a bit of gentrification, but it’s still the same as it’s been for 30-odd years,” said Ryan Fortini, born and raised in the area and owner of the boutique Pacific Motel, my base for two nights.

Sunrise view towards Morro Rock from Cayucos
— (Ellie Seymour)

I was in Cayucos, a hidden surf town in San Luis Obispo County on California’s crowd-free central coast – or SLO-CAL as it’s known. Exactly halfway between San Francisco and LA, this peaceful paradise is home to world-class surf, glorious wine country, seal colonies, Michelin-starred restaurants, the kitschiest hotel in the world, and even an opulent castle.

Despite SLO-CAL’s charms, it’s a region most road-tripping visitors along the Pacific Coast Highway merely pass through on their way to bigger-ticket coastal hotspots like Big Sur. But when they do discover it, they soon realise it’s a destination worthy of a holiday in its own right and vow to return.

Read more on California travel:

The next morning, from the terrace of my new favourite café, Hidden Kitchen, I watched people clearing the butter-soft sand of driftwood after a storm. And then I met my Cayucos Cowboy: a big blue corn waffle topped with eggs, smoky black beans, green salsa, avocado, and cilantro (that’s coriander to us across the pond). It was California on a plate; the perfect post-surf breakfast, too, according to my husband Dan, who’d caught a few waves that morning and was ravenous.

With two days to play with, we spent the first exploring north of Cayucos, starting at Harmony, population 18. Founded in 1869 as the home of the Harmony Valley Creamery Association, today it’s a quaint day-out destination where you’ll find the Harmony Valley Creamery Scoop Truck, Harmony Glass Works, Harmony Chapel and Gardens – people hire the whole town for weddings – and the Harmony Pottery Shop artisan galleries. Here I met Devra, a local from Backwood-Los Osos, not far from Cayucos. “Even sleepier,” she promised of her home town, “You must visit. It’s a real local place.”

Hidden Kitchen
— (Cali soul food at Hidden Kitchen)

Further north, just past San Simeon at the Piedras Blancas Rookery, I had a pinch-me moment, watching hundreds of elephant seals lolling around this protected eight-mile expanse of sand. And another during a walk at the coastal cypress-scented Fiscalini Ranch Preserve. It’s set on the southern boundary of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the largest marine sanctuary in the US. Walking the gravel paths lined with purple wildflowers, white-tailed kites soared overhead, and two southern sea otters played together amid the waves.

On an inland detour back to Cayucos through velvety green hills, we made a surprise discovery: Stolo Winery. It opened in 2000 but is still a secret spot for some locals. “I hadn’t even heard of it until last year, and I’ve lived in the area for years!” said Jessica as she poured me a glass of Creekside Estate Pinot Noir to drink in the suntrap English-style country garden.

“We come for a weekend in next door Cambria twice a year with our dog, Maggie,” said Joyce, a woman who was sitting on the wooden bench next to us, of her and her husband Bill, both members of the winery. “It’s just a lovely spot, nice and quiet, no one to compete with.”

The secret is out and there’s a bit of gentrification, but it’s still the same as it’s been for 30-odd years

SLO-CAL has had eight Michelin nods in 2023, but we opted for a casual dinner at local-favourite Beerwood, on Devra’s home turf, Baywood-Los Osos. At the sight of a man getting out of a classic convertible Pontiac outside the Merrymaker, a classic corner dive bar, and another dressed in a pastel tie-dyed hoodie parking his VW campervan, I felt transported to 1960s California. The slow drive home was through the magical Montaña de Oro, alive with wildflowers and towering eucalyptus trees; people in campers and cars were parked up in anticipation of watching the sunset over the Pacific.

It’s all too easy to get sucked in a bubble of California’s tiny central coast beach towns, so on day two I hit the town of San Luis Obispo, a 20-minute-drive south. On the way, I sneaked a peek at the majestic Morro rock – one of the Nine Sisters, a chain of volcanic rocks dotting the coast from Morro Bay south to San Luis Obispo. It was once the setting for the first motel, now a lilting facade beyond a chain link fence. It opened on 12 December 1925 and offered accessible luxury to the travelling Average Joe and celebrities alike – Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe are said to have stayed here on their honeymoon.

Every Thursday night, the smoky scent of barbecue from F McLintocks’ stall – a local institution – fills the air at the Downtown SLO Farmers’ Market, luring me in for a sticky, glossy rib. Though I made sure I left room for dessert at SLO-Cal’s most unexpected landmark, The Madonna Inn, a kitsch hotel the size of a small village.

View from Hearst Castle
— (Ellie Seymour)

On my bucket list for years, this incredible Swiss-Alps-meets-Barbiecore-style resort was originally created in 1958 by the late construction magnate Alex Madonna and his wife Phyllis. Lucky for me, the Copper Café is open to non-guests and here I attempted – and utterly failed – to devour an entire slab of the pink champagne cake it’s famed for, served to us by a waitress in Lederhosen.

Checking out of Cayucos is a sad moment, eased with a bite of my first brown butter cookie – crumbly, caramelly – from central coast bakery, the Brown Butter Cookie Company, and a view over this sublime coastal stretch from the extravagant historic estate, Hearst Castle. It was built in 1919 in a prime spot overlooking the village of San Simeon and the Pacific Ocean, by publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst. He, at least, realised early on that SLO-CAL deserved more than a cursory glance on the road to somewhere else.