Sonoma

Jutting into the Pacific like a weathered fist, Point Reyes National Seashore is a 71,000-acre sanctuary where the San Andreas Fault cleaves the continent, creating a geological drama that underpins every vista. Here, the drama is written in wind-sculpted cypress tunnels, tule elk bugling through coastal scrub at dawn, and the thunder of gray whales migrating past the historic lighthouse — a 1870 sentinel perched on a cliff 600 feet above the churning surf, reachable via 313 stairs that test the lungs. Drakes Beach unfurls in a crescent of pale sand backed by sandstone cliffs stained rust-red by mineral springs, while the cypress “tree tunnel” at the entrance to the historic RCA/Marconi station frames a cathedral of green. The seashore’s human history runs deep: Coast Miwok villages, Sir Francis Drake’s 1579 careening, Portuguese dairy ranches still operating under lease, and the maritime radio station that once linked San Francisco to the Pacific Rim. In spring, the headlands erupt in a riot of Douglas iris, California poppy, and lupine; in autumn, the tule elk rut echoes across Tomales Point.