Some places live on your bucket list for a very long time. And not because they are expensive or hardly accessible. The only reason you skip visit of them is that of their popularity or your struggle to find the best time for their visit.
It’s my story of relations with Point Lobos. How many time we drove near it, saw the parked cars along both sides of the road, and thought – how crazy people are to walk this small stunning piece of land in such crowds.


At the beginning of the August, we had a weekend trip to Monterey. We bought strawberries at Pezzini Farms, sat by the ocean at Marina State Beach and watch how paragliders flight over us, checked in at popular Monterey Tides, and in two hours before sunset drove to the Point Lobos.
No, we hadn’t even slightest hope to see the sunset. I just decided to check the timing that works in the most parks of this region of California. This year showed that even if the place is a crazy popular destination, just in an hour before sunset, it would have half of regular amount of users or even less.
And this statement worked perfectly. I do assume on clear days there would be more photographers and tourists but clouds and fog reduced crowds to the very minimum.
We parked at the Whalers Cove with a plan to walk North Shore trail to the Cypress Grove and return to the car inland.

That day we saw only the fog. But in the case of Monterey and Big Sur, fog is a good sign. The rocky structures look stunning covered with the dense fog. The blue color of the water gets greenish tones. You get it, I’m both hands for the foggy weather 🙂

North Shore Trail has stunning beauty. You will need to open your eyes, hold your camera close and watch your step. The trail is easy though has steps and rocks. But there is no climbing, no sandy part which kills me on the shore trails.

A lot of wildlife could be spotted along the trail. And I’m not talking about just gulls and sea birds.

When you think about Monterey, you should think about cypress trees. At the point Lobos, they covered with some kind of orange moss. The bright and otherworldly!

There is one building worth to stop by. The Whaler Cabin is a building that remained from 1850s Chinese fishermen that lived in the area. Right now it’s a site of the Whaling Station Museum.