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Coastal California Guidebook
from Lonely Planet
The Coastal California guidebook published by Lonely Planet is an essential travel guide for anyone driving or cycling the Pacific Coast Highway. It's a smart move on the publishers' part as the guide focuses on the busy tourist strip of California coastline, from Pelican State Beach on the Oregon border to Tijuana just across the Mexico border. The book therefore takes in San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as the best beaches and a little corner of wine country too.Coastal California shows the variety of this region, which it's popular to dismiss as being all Baywatch and Disneyland. The two authors recommend you think of California as being two distinct states: northern California and southern California. After all, there's a world of difference between Oregon and Tijuana. This guide reminds us that this stretch of the west coast takes in not only Disneyland and beaches, but giant redwood trees, hiking at Big Sur, writers like John Steinbeck, a bit of wine country, Hearst Castle, elk trails, whale-watching, gourmet cuisine and National Parks.
COASTAL CALIFORNIA: TRAVEL LITERATURE
The music, art and literature of Coastal California is introduced to provide a background to anyone's travels, with reading recommendations including Joan Didion, Armistead Maupin, Dave Eggers, Jack Kerouac and of course the towering figure of John Steinbeck: 'If you've never read any novel by John Steinbeck, youMust do so before visiting Coastal California. Pick up Cannery Row, particularly if you plan to visit Monterey.' THEMED TRAVEL ITINERARIES
Some suggestions for themed travel itineraries are given, including one focussed on natural history, another on family attractions, and one, naturally, for the 'Freaks and Weirdos'. There's a section on surfing, including a list of places providing women-only surfing lessons, and information on popular west coast pursuits like cycling and whale-watching... not to mention eating and drinking. The bulk of the book is the typically thorough Lonely Planet guidebook, with excellent town and city maps showing you exactly where the attractions, accommodation and restaurant recommendations can be found. While you won't get the detailed look at places like Los Angeles and San Francisco that a dedicated city guide provides, all the main information is there for anyone planning to maybe spend just a day or two in each place, as they travel along the California Coast. With the index ranging from Accommodation to Zoos, the Lonely Planet Coastal California guide is a good buy for Pacific Coast Highway travelers.
Buying This Coastal California Guidebook
This 2nd edition of Coastal California was published in April 2007 by Lonely Planet at $19.99 in the USA and £12.99 in the UK. A new edition was published in May 2010 and is available on Amazon USA, at Amazon UK, in bookstores, and at other online booksellers.
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Popular Pages
The most popular pages on Pacific Coast Highway Travel right now are:
Drive the Pacific Coast Highway
Whale Watching in California
Where to Stay on the PCH
Pacific Coast Highway Maps
PCH Hotels Guide
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.
For the 2011 edition we added new hotels, including a special 50-hotel section covering California’s wine country of Napa, Sonoma, and Paso Robles - by far the most popular diversion from the PCH drive. 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 $2.99:
KINDLE EDITION
The 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.
NOOK EDITION
The guide is also available at Barnes and Noble for the Nook.
PAPERBACK EDITION
If you want a printed edition without color photos and with only black and white maps, it costs $8.99 at the Amazon US store.
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.
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