Earth's least cynical place
Plus earth's greatest clothing shop, a secret riverside oasis, and tons of delicious food. One road trip brings it all together
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— Jonah & Erin
Is there a more perfectly, mythically American way to travel than The Road Trip?
You’ve got The Car… a supposed instrument of unbridled freedom that, despite its genuinely liberatory powers, is also an isolating, antisocial, crazymaking prison-cell on wheels that poisons our mother, Gaia.
You’ve got The Open Road… a miraculous network of highways crisscrossing the nation, hugging its coastlines, encircling its cities, built at the behest of the automobile and fossil-fuel industries at the expense of walkability, good mass transit, and strong civic bonds.
You’ve got The Gas Station… a cursed Temple of the Petrodollar where you can nonetheless enjoy Flamin’ Hot Limón Doritos, Good Humor Cookies & Creme Ice Cream bars, and dope crappy sunglasses.
But add up the pros and the many, many cons, and damn it if the Road Trip doesn’t remain a romantic, deeply alluring way to hurtle yourself through time & space.
Back when Erin and I (Jonah) still lived in New York, we planned numerous vacations around driving different chunks of unreal Southwestern desert or the justifiably legendary coastal Highway 1. A few weeks ago, feeling nostalgic for those trips, we decided to road trip it north from Oakland, CA, up into beautiful British Columbia.
We plotted a route that would tie together many Pacific Northwest marvels, including:
gargantuan redwoods;
untamed Pacific Ocean panoramas;
a little-known riverfront oasis in southern Oregon we first stumbled on 15 years ago;
an undersung stretch of coastline that rivals Big Sur in rugged beauty;
delicious food and more in Portland, Seattle and Vancouver;
the greatest clothing shop in the world, which just got even greater;
a long, gorgeous ferry ride to a remote corner of Canada that so many homies told us was fire that we knew it was time to visit — and it did not disappoint, featuring not only 3 of the best meals we’ve eaten in recent memory, but also an inspiringly chill dude and, for good measure, the least cynical place on Earth.
Along the way we saw great friends, made new ones, and took many nature baths. It was a trip, in other words, that honored our love of people, food, trees, birds, and very good clothes. The cost of admission was hours upon hours of sitting in a car.
Our itinerary is easily replicable, and modifiable as needed. We suggest you read this post in a web browser by clicking here. Enjoy!
For this trip, we set an alarm for 5 a.m. and were on the road from Oakland before sunrise. If you want to fit in some extra splendor to this trip up top, spend a few nights on the Sonoma coast, in and around the amazing…
Sea Ranch, CA
Our fondness for this 10-mile stretch of coast is no secret. It was founded in the mid-1960s according to a strict set of constraints, architectural and otherwise, meant to honor the landscape’s woolly natural beauty. There’s a bluff trail, a lodge, you can rent very special houses, it’s ~3 hours north of the Bay, and the drive there is gorgeous.
There are beaucoup tips for Sea Ranch, and some gems due north of it, from us and Spyfriends alike in the Travel Chat, here.
From Sea Ranch, you continue north on Highway 1, getting drunk off ocean vistas as you wind your way through Mendocino and into Humboldt County. There, you curve inland and link up with Highway 101 and the itinerary we took this time around.
On the 101 north, our pulses quickened when we spotted signs for…
Avenue of the Giants
Our cameras didn’t do the giants justice in the least, so I’m using an old postcard (above) to illustrate them, and leaving the rest to your imagination. This is a 31-mile, two-lane road that effectively parallels the 101, but bisects an epic, enormous, old-growth redwood forest. We stopped at various spots for nature walks, there’s some vibey little towns with funky diners and thrift stores, and if it was late summer, we could have gotten homemade honor-system blackberry popsicles at this farmstand. A strong sense of The Eternal prevails throughout. Platonic-ideal American Road Trip s--t.
Hwy 1 and the 101 are one & the same here. They led us back out to the Pacific, and after a picnic lunch at Clam Beach, just north of McKinleyville, it wasn’t long until we rolled into southern Oregon, where we checked in for a couple nights at one of most special & restful places we’ve ever stayed.
Thanks to its relative remoteness, it isn’t on a ton of people’s radars…
