Redwood Forest Adventure

How many times have you thought you planned the perfect trip and arrived to only have to completely change everything you planned? - Save this post to avoid vacation chaos in the redwoods and share with your travel friends! - Below is a list of all of the things I learned after arriving to explore the redwoods. - 1. When you search in google maps and/or in google where the redwoods are about 10-15 different locations pop up. Only one is labeled ‘Redwood National and State Parks’ so it would make sense to head to that location right? Well, not quite, if you head to this location you will find redwoods but only a small cluster of the ‘old generation’ (I’ll explain the difference in a later post, just know you want the old generation for the really LARGE trees) called the Lady Bird Johnson Grove, which is beautiful but includes a small one mile loop that won’t take you a whole day to see. So if you want an easy quick trip to see a ton of large redwoods, stay closer to Crescent City. If you want a bit more of an adventure follow highway 101 or the redwood highway and pull off on every exit that has a redwood sign marker to find the perfect little pockets. - 2. Some of the above listed pockets of redwoods require a permit for either driving or hiking. For instance, Tall Tree Grove, which is not far from Lady Bird Johnson Grove requires a permit to drive to but not to hike to. However, the entrances for driving and hiking in are in totally different locations. Research your goal locations at least a week prior to make sure you have your required permits or know the actual start to your hike or drive. - 3. The beach is SO CLOSE! We stuck around Orick, CA exploring the redwoods and all of the highway pull offs, which gave us ample opportunity to hit all of the beaches as well. None of these beaches are swimmable, but the hiking and backroads to get to them are STUNNING because of the redwoods and on top of that the beaches themselves are virtually untouched (at least in November). - Bonus Information: We found a bypass in a pull off from highway 101 that was completely blocked off with no explanation. It could have been time of year, the weekend, or COVID 🤷🏼‍♀