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Cambria

The Beach at Moonstone Drive next to Cambria

The Beach at Moonstone Drive, Cambria
All Photos (c) Donna Dailey

Cambria on California’s Central Coast is a good stop on the Pacific Coast Highway, and it’s a great place to stay if you plan on seeing Hearst Castle. The Castle is about 10 miles north of Cambria, an easy 15-minute drive along a usually quiet stretch of PCH. You just turn off the Highway and right into the Hearst Castle parking lot. We usually stay in Cambria when visiting Hearst Castle, as even though it’s a small town of a few thousand people, there’s a good choice of places to stay and places to eat, to suit all budgets and tastes.

We also just love the feel of the place. It’s unspoiled and relaxed, with a laid-back atmosphere and friendly people. It’s set back off the highway, so is mainly quiet, and you can wander round at night and decide where you want to eat. It’s got an interesting history too, having been settled back in the 1890s by miners from Wales, in the United Kingdom. Its name actually comes from the Welsh name for Wales, Cymru, and it’s an improvement on its original name of Slab Town.

Read about the New Hearst Castle Tours for Summer.

Getting to Cambria
Cambria is about 250 miles north of Los Angeles, if you stick to the coast as much as you can. It will take 5-6 hours, maybe even a little more if it’s busy, but it’s an enjoyable drive through Malibu, up to Santa Barbara (a good place to break the journey if you want to take it easy), and then inland for a while, and finally through Pismo Beach, San Luis Obispo, and Morro Bay. Look for the Cambria turn-offs from the Pacific Coast Highway. It doesn’t matter too much if you miss the first one as they’ll all take you to Cambria’s long main street.

Driving south from San Francisco along the coast it’s about 220 miles – maybe 4-5 hours of driving. If you allow time for stops then it’s going to take you one long day to get there from San Francisco. Far better to break the drive in somewhere like Monterey, Carmel, or Big Sur. You can save time by driving the faster route south along 101 rather than Highway-1, if you need to get there in a hurry, but then you’ll miss some of the best PCH scenery.

How Long to Spend in Cambria?
We’ve only ever stayed one or two nights at a time in Cambria, but we always want to stay more. Plenty of people do visit from Los Angeles for the weekend, or even longer. If you have limited time for your Pacific Coast Highway trip then we’d say one night is enough, but it’s a really great place so stay a few days if you can.

What to See in Cambria
There’s not a lot to do in the town itself, and that’s one of its charms. There are plenty of shopping opportunities, and you can take in visits not only to Hearst Castle but also Piedras Blancas Beach (where you’ll get amazing close-up views of elephant seals), and inland into Paso Robles Wine Country.

Nit Wit Ridge in Cambria The only real attraction as such in the town is a place called Nitt Witt Ridge (or Nit Wit Ridge), sometimes called the Poor Man’s Hearst Castle. It was built out of assorted left-over material, rubbish, bottles, spare car parts, flotsam and jetsam from the beaches, and all kinds of other materials. It was constructed by an eccentric and reclusive artist named Arthur Harold Beal, alias Captain Nitt Witt, who spent 50 years working on the house. He died in 1992 at the age of 96, and you can visit the house but need to make an appointment first by phoning 805/927-2690.

Where to Stay in Cambria
We like staying in the town itself but we’ve also stayed out at the nearby beach, on Moonstone Drive. We can thoroughly recommend the Pelican Cove Inn. It’s great to wake up there and go for a walk along the beach, and it’s only a 5-minute drive into Cambria itself.

If you want to stay in Cambria itself, we can really recommend the lovely Olallieberry Inn. It’s on the edge of town, one of the first places you reach if you’re driving from the south, yet close enough to walk in to some great eating places.

Cambria: More Information
You can find out more about Cambria by visiting the
Cambria Chamber of Commerce website.

Go from Cambria Page to
Pacific Coast Highway Travel Home Page

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PCH Hotels Guide

Pacific Coast Highway Hotels Guide 2012

To help you in choosing your Pacific Coast Highway hotel, guesthouse, inn, bed-and-breakfast, resort, motel or other accommodations, we've prepared our Pacific Coast Highway Hotels Guide ebook. In it we do mini-reviews of accommodations along the Highway, from Seattle to San Diego, through Washington, Oregon, and California.

The 2012 edition is now available direct from us as an ebook. In all there are over 200 hotels listed, complete with 8 pages of color maps showing the towns where our recommended hotels can be found. There are both alphabetical and geographical indexes, helping you plan your journey.

We also include color photos of all the hotels that are our Personal Favorites. Here's the link to
read more about our ebook guide to Pacific Coast Highway hotels

Or you can buy it here for $7.99:

KINDLE EDITION
The 2012 edition of our Hotels Guide is also available but without the maps and color photos in the US Kindle Store for $4.99 and in the UK Kindle Store at a price based on the US price.

PAPERBACK EDITION
If you want a paperback edition of the 2012 guide without color photos and with only black and white maps, it costs $8.99 at the US Amazon Book Store

NOOK EDITION
The 2011 edition of the guide is also available at Barnes and Noble for the Nook.

PCH Hotels Guide app

We've also published our PCH Hotels Guide as an app in the Apple Store.
You can buy it here and
read about it here.