Cheryl Shops

In spite of the fact that I'm not a textbook outdoorsy person, Big Sur is one of my favorite places on earth. I've day-tripped or driven through it multiple times, but had never actually spent the night there. So when my company announced that we had to take a mandatory week off—and flying anywhere was out of the question—Sean and I decided to take a road trip, and Big Sur seemed like the perfect place to hit first. Depending on traffic, it's about three and a half hours by car from San Francisco, and I highly recommend taking the scenic route, Highway 1, which goes along the Pacific. Big Sur is a magical place; it's surrounded by mountains, heavily forested, with a river running through it, and it stretches along some of the most gorgeous parts of the coastline. It's also incredibly peaceful and relaxing; on a usual vacation, it generally takes me a couple days to totally relax, but I felt completely mellow by the end of our first night. We spent four nights in Big Sur, but whether you're spending an entire week or only one night (considering we had a different neighbor every night, I think that's what most people tend to do), there are a gazillion things to do. Here's what we did in Big Sur.