At the time of this wondrous road trip through the Redwoods National and State Parks, we weren’t **total** strangers to van-life road trips to beautiful places. Our epic DIY camper van trip from Vancouver road-tripping our way to Banff and Jasper hooked me on this way of travel. I loved the odd sense of security of having everything you own and need to account for (at least for that trip) physically in your vehicular apartment, and being able to move the comfort of that temporary home to awe-inspiring locations. All this to say, when we decided to visit the California Redwoods, I knew I wanted to travel via camper van!

This shorter trip couldn’t justify the headache of furnishing a DIY camper van from scratch like we did for our Canada trip. This time, we chose the much more convenient (and much more expensive) option – a camper van rental from Outdoorsy.

Day #1

After overeating in San Francisco’s Chinatown, we took an Uber to the city of Petaluma to pick up our rental camper van home for the next 5 days. Renting a camper van from Outdoorsy often means travelling to more residential areas to pick up the van.

Bodega Bay

Heading north, we drove to Bodega Bay on the west shoreline. Lunch was planned at Spud Point Crab Company, a cafe known for clam chowder and seafood sandwiches, both of which we sampled that day. The crab sandwich at Spud Point Crab co. was even better than the crab sandwich from Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco from the day before. Spud Point’s crab sandwich had huge, unadulterated chunks of succulent crab. The place is popular so we couldn’t find any spots in their (only outdoor) seating area, but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise as we instead enjoyed our seafood meal gazing out at people driving their boats around the docks.

Highway 1 Scenic Drive

The drive north from San Francisco to the Redwoods can involve either an inland route or the coastal scenic route. I was determined to do it “properly” and chose the coastal route, but I honestly think the inland route might have been the smarter choice. The coastal views seen on the drive shortly after leaving Bodega Bay were absolutely stunning, with crashing white capped waves, cliffs and rock formations, and even a sea arch. However, this initial section of the drive was the most scenic of the entire way up to Mendocino, and it was all before the fork in the road where one chooses the inland versus coastal roads. Meaning, you’re going to get the best sea view right at the beginning of your drive north regardless of which route you choose. The rest of the scenic coastal route was indeed scenic, but most of the road was not actually right by the ocean so the view was actually of a winding road through grassy fields atop rolling hills and trees. And when I say winding, I mean winding. This route is probably a blast to drive in a small car or even on a motorcycle, but was unnerving in a huge camper van. I would hazard a guess that the inland route is straighter (less cliffs require less hairpin turns) and more fuel-efficient. Also, the daily fog tends to rise up and blanket everything, hindering visibility on these narrow winding roads.

Mendocino

After 2.5 hours of driving from Bodega Bay, we arrived at our final stop of the day: the town of Mendocino! Our first stop was Frankie’s to try their famous candy cap mushroom ice cream. Candy cap mushrooms grow in the woods on the Mendocino coast and are supposed to have the aroma and flavor of maple syrup. The candy cap mushroom ice cream had a vanilla butterscotch flavor.

We parked our home on wheels in a lot in Mendocino and settled in for the night. Our first “van-cooked” dinner featured rigatoni with cacio e pepe sauce with avocado and Chinese sausage.

Day #2

Point Mendocino Trail

After awakening on our first morning in the van, we made a cup of coffee and stepped outside to the Point Mendocino Trail, an easy coastal hike with amazing views of the Pacific coast. The hike is very well trodden and generally even-footed, taking you through narrow lanes bordered by shoulder-high blades of golden grasses. It parallels the cliff edge overlooking the beach. We spent time watching surfers, birds, and waves while sipping our coffees in peace.

Fort Bragg

Fort Bragg is a short 18 minute drive north from Mendocino. Fort Bragg is known for its glass beach, but it barely has sea glass anymore largely due to visitors taking home bits of glass as souvenirs. Unfortunately we still saw visitors taking sea glass despite the signs reminding them that taking glass was both illegal and highly frowned upon. Don’t be that tourist!

Our Day #2 lunch was fried chicken from … drumroll … Safeway! This grocery store is semi-known for having surprisingly commendable quality fried chicken, and their turnover rate is high due to the number of people who come for the food. Fresh chicken is best chicken!

Another gem of Fort Bragg is North Coast Brewing. This brewery offers a surprisingly vast selection of beers. We sampled six beers, and my favorites were their farmhouse ale and Irish dry stout.

Humboldt Redwoods State Park

Leaving Fort Bragg, we embarked on a 2 hour drive to the Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

Avenue Of The Giants

Moving north, don’t miss the smaller road paralleling Highway 101. This slower path is the Avenue Of The Giants, a 31 mile scenic road running parallel to the larger highway, Avenue Of The Giants, expectedly, offers stunning views of giant trees.

Pro tip: check All Trails and Trip Advisor before going! This is how I knew that the southern part of Trail of Giants was closed for construction at the time of our visit. I was able to access the scenic road by skipping the first exit from the highway and waiting until exit 650.

Founders Tree And Rockefeller Loop

Shortly after getting on the Avenue Of The Giants, you’ll see signs for the trail to  Founders Tree as well as the Rockefeller Loop Trail. Both of these are quite short (around 0.5mi each) and very easy. If you only have time for one trail, I recommend skipping the Founders Tree and going for the Rockefeller Loop. The Rockefeller Loop is more meditative with less road noise from nearby highways.

Fortuna, CA

15 minutes away from Avenue Of The Giants, we passed through the town of Fortuna as we continued on our way to the Redwoods. Fortuna is home to America’s first certified organic brewery: Eel River Brewing. We enjoyed a dinner of fish and chips washed down with a blonde ale.

Elk Prairie Campground

Our first night, finally, in the majestic Redwood National and State Parks!

Day #3

Our first breakfast in the Redwoods featured cheese bread spread with peanut butter, honey, and cinnamon. This, we’d come to learn, would become a beloved trend on this trip.

Lady Bird Johnson Grove

The Lady Bird Johnson Grove Trail is a family-friendly 1.5-mild loop trail. Keep in mind that access to this trail is via Bald Hills Road which is a rough, bumpy, and very steep road not recommended for RV’s or trailer campers. The camper van performed great on this road!

The NPS app has a self guided tour with 13 marked points of interest and informative tidbits along the way. Here are some we learned:

• Redwoods are one of the longest living plants in the world, growing since the Aztec age. Most redwoods here are 600-800 yrs old but they can grow up to two millennia.
• Forest fire burns through the tree heartwood but leaves the exterior layers intact to continue growing. This creates the appearance of burned, hollowed out trees that remain standing and green up top.
• After a forest fire, ferns are the first vegetation to grow back, then other seedlings like those of Douglas Fir and Western Hemlock come next, followed by Redwoods.

Tall Trees Grove Trail

Both the Lady Bird Johnson Grove Trail and the Tall Trees Trail require a drive up the bumpy Bald Hills Road. Be sure to plan your hikes to make the most of this rough ride by doing both of these trails on the same day.

Lunch was curried lentils with garlic naan.

Gold Bluffs Beach

We had a reservation this evening to stay at Gold Bluffs Beach Campground.

Pro tip: A visiting permit is required to access the Gold Bluffs Beach and Fern Canyon day use areas, but a Gold Bluffs Beach camping reservation waives this requirement. Gold Bluffs Beach Campground has sites right next to the sand and the beach is a wonderful spot for watching the sun set over the westward water views.

I loved cooking dinner over the campfire. We prepared gnocchi with pesto sauce as well as tri tip beef chunks with Chinese veggies. The night was finished off with roasted marshmallows.

Day #4

Breakfast in the van was again cheese bread with peanut butter, honey, and cinnamon, along with a pour-over coffee.

Fern Canyon

We started off the day with a hike through Fern Canyon. Fern Canyon is a must do at the Redwoods! Do NOT miss it.

This is another hike that requires a permit ($12) requested in advance, and the America The Beautiful U.S. Parks Pass grants entry as well. Fern Canyon is a short hike (the canyon itself is only 0.1 mile from the parking lot) with a lot of bang for your buck. Taking the loop counter clockwise will take you through the canyon portion first. This is a good option for avoiding crowds especially if you arrive after mid-morning. Plan to arrive at the Tern Canyon trailhead before 10:00am to make sure you get a parking spot and so your views aren’t too full of other people.

Please be aware that the drive along Gold Bluffs Beach is riddled with (deep) potholes and you have to dive your car through a shallow stream. Our van made it through, and we even saw some daring smaller cars traversing but proceed with caution! Once at the canyon itself, you’ll be awestruck by the number of ferns and mosses completely covering the canyon walls. This canyon was created by a retreating sea millions of years, and some of the many fern species have ancestors that date back 325 million years! The scene of the babbling brook below, a fuzzy swath of green ferns hanging from and swaying along the canyon walls, vertical moss carpets slowly dripping water was just so good that after completing the loop once we decided to go back and explore the canyon a second time.

Trillium Falls Trail

The waterfall is pretty close to the beginning of the hike if you go counterclockwise. The waterfall was a bit dry at the time of our visit, but it still had constant flow. If you’re tight on time you can start the hike counterclockwise to reach the waterfall and then turn around and hike back where you came from.

Big Tree Wayside

After a lunch of stir fried noodles with veggies (the bags of pre-cut, pre-washed veggies from Trader Joe’s come in handy when camping) and a side of tomato and roasted red pepper soup, we continued our exploration of Prairie Creek State Park.

Big Tree Wayside is one of many impressively gigantic old-growth redwoods in this area, but this one is logistically friendly. The parking area offers public vault toilets and the short 250-feet trail to the tree is even wheelchair accessible.

Elk Prairie Campground

With the daylight fading, we returned to our campsite #48 at Elk Prairie Campground. Tip for next time (keep this in mind as you select your campsite at time of reservation): Campsite #48 had a small bushwhacked path with access to the stream behind it, but our neighbors at campsite #50 had easy direct access to the water, so I recommend choosing that campsite if it’s available. Of course, I had to make a campfire for dinner (and ambiance). Tonight’s dinner included roasted chicken-cheddar-roasted pepper sausages, fire-broiled Chinese veggies with garlic and Chinese sausage, and mushroom truffle ravioli (from Trader Joe’s).

Day #5

Were we bored of it yet? Apparently not. Breakfast on our last morning in the camper van was cheese bread, peanut butter, honey, and cinnamon. And a coffee.

High Bluff Overlook

We didn’t have high expectations of any view whatsoever as the fog was so thick but we were actually able to see the ocean waves and rocks below peeking through the fog! The sounds of the crashing waves was like a sound machine. We tried to record it but it didn’t do the real experience justice.

Yurok Loop Trail – Hidden Beach Trail – Hidden Beach

Hidden Beach is a hike in a beach and is a playground of medium and small driftwood pieces (for big driftwood, go further north to Olympic National Park!). Pacific Northwest beaches are perfect for building driftwood shelters and it’s fun to poke around the structures and contribute to them. Hidden Beach is reportedly a good place for tide pools, but unfortunately we visited during rising tide and couldn’t explore them.

DeMartin Beach Picnic Area

There is very limited (meaning only one) picnic table area, so we ended up cooking and eating right outside the van. The views and sounds of the beach are wonderful. You can really sense the power of the ocean here. We cooked up a curry with ground beef, fried potato, and tomato over a bed of noodles with garlic naan on the side.

Grove Of Titans Trail

Next up on the itinerary was another hike. After passing through Crescent City, turn onto Howland Hill Rd which takes you to many notable and popular hikes in the Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park. They range from easy to challenging.

The Grove of Titans Trail, while short and easy, ranks super high on the effort:reward ratio. The history of this trail is that rumors spread of a grove of old-growth redwoods trees where several of the largest redwoods in the area happened to grow in very close proximity. The spot became too popular, and as more hikers veered off trail to find this almost mythical grove of ancient giants, more and more of the forest underbrush was destroyed. The National Park Service finally decided to create an official trail to mitigate the collateral damage, using elevated metal walkways to protect the ferns below. These walkways had to be carried up to the trail site by hand!  The Grove of Titans Trail is not wheelchair accessible due to some stairsteps, but it otherwise is a super easy trail. The metal walkways provide even footing which allows you to focus less on your steps and more on the gigantic trees above you. Some trees here are over 2,000 years old. My favorite tree was actually not one of the “Titans” but a big tree growing around a nurse log (logs from previously fallen trees whose decomposing organic material provides excellent nurturing grounds to “nurse” other saplings and plants). Most trees seen perched on nurse logs are small, but this one was a full grown tree with huge roots wrapping around the nurse log like a giant octopus.

Keep in mind: The Grove of Titans Trail had by far the most mosquitoes, who did not seem to mind the big spray we were wearing.

Crescent City

After several days in the forest, we were looking forward to visiting the city of Crescent City. We spent some time sampling beers at Seaquake Brewing.

Mill Creek Campground

Our last night spent in the van was at Mill Creek Campground a little south of Crescent City. We made a huge dinner in the efforts to finish our food before our camping trip concluded. Over the campfire, we prepared Chinese veggies with Chinese sausage, garlic “french fries,” rigatoni with ground beef in cacio e pepe sauce, and tomato soup.

And with that, our 5-day camper van adventure from San Francisco to the Redwoods came to an end … until next time!