Best of the West: 10 trips that made my 2021 better
Like a lot of people, I mostly stayed within 500 miles of home this year.
However, my job is telling you about travel in the West, so I did wind up on a canoe in Yurok waters and at the outdoor bar at Pappy & Harriet’s in Pioneertown and ... well, I saw enough to put together a Top 10 list. Here are my favorite discoveries of the year, all of which are ripe for visits in 2022. They all include consumer tips.
Feel free to head to any of the photos or headlines below that speak loudly to you — or linger another moment for a quick preview of travel tips tucked into those stories.
The Tahoe road trip story tells you about the striking log cabin/industrial chic design of the Cedar House Sport Hotel in Truckee. In the Las Vegas piece, you hear about the new energy that the Circa Resort (opened in late 2020) has brought to the downtown area. From the Northern California story, you get details on great meals I had at the Boonville General Store (lunch, Boonville) and Fog Eater Cafe (dinner, Mendocino) and the lively new scene developing among the restaurants, bars and lodgings that line Fort Bragg’s gritty Noyo Harbor.
The San Francisco article points you toward the Japanese Tea Garden and SkyStar Ferris wheel in Golden Gate Park. The Europe-in-L.A. list is a celebration of locations designed to remind you of the continent, including Venice Beach and the big Burbank Ikea. (Since that piece came out, you’ll be happy to know that jousting has resumed at Medieval Times in Buena Park.)
The Skunk Train Railbike story is about a new way to roll through the Mendocino County forest — modified bikes on railroad tracks. The collection of desert photos shows just how much strangeness you can find in 48 hours out there. The college tour zooms through 11 nearly empty California campuses. In the Yurok canoe article, I tell how the Yurok people in Del Norte County have begun taking summertime visitors for cultural tours in hand-carved redwood canoes on the Klamath River. And the Bridge-to-Nowhere piece is an account of what to expect on the 10-mile round-trip hike to a lonely, idle bridge in the San Gabriel Mountains.
Rainbows, aspens and salmon were just the beginning of my journey. Travel tips included.
Visitors these days will find Las Vegas behaving more and more like its old self — but masked. Virgin, Circa resorts and Area 15 shows get busier
These spots in Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte counties offer food, fun and nature.
Don’t expect to ride cable cars or climb Coit Tower. But much else is opening fast.
Europe surrounds us in L.A.. But not all Euro substitutes are created equal.
Skunk Train Railbikes, part of a nationwide trend, takes riders past redwoods and river waters in Mendocino County.
I drove 570 miles through Southern California’s deserts.
We covered 11 campuses and 1,100 miles, from Camarillo to Davis. What did we learn?
These redwood canoes link past and future on the Klamath River. Here’s how my ride went.
The Bridge to Nowhere, deep in the San Gabriel Mountains, is sturdy enough to have lasted 85 years, strange enough to draw crowds and start arguments.
