Pismo Beach & San Luis Obispo, CA

We moved 110 miles north of Ventura to Pismo Beach, the next stop on our Pacific Coast Highway road trip. Pismo Beach is a very popular RVing destination and there are a lot of camping choices. There are multiple huge RV parks, Pismo Beach State Park, and just south of Pismo Beach is Oceano Dunes where you can drive and park your RV out on the sand and ride your ATV on the dunes. When we arrived on a Sunday, the weekend crowds were still there and the town felt very crowded. It was much calmer during the week and by the end of two weeks, Pismo Beach really grew on us.

We stayed at Pismo Beach State Park’s North Campground. While you can’t see the beach from any of the well-spaced campsites, a 1-2 minute walk through small dunes brings you out to 17 miles of sandy beach! It’s some of the most affordable beachfront dry camping ($25/night) we’ve been able to find.

Another 1-2 minute walk brings you to Pismo’s Monarch Butterfly Grove, where tens of thousands of monarchs migrate October through February. This year’s count was over 13,000. When it’s cold, the monarchs group together in the eucalyptus trees to stay warm.

It was so nice to just be able to walk out to the beach every day instead of driving somewhere. I think this is one of the best walking beaches we’ve ever been to, which we did every afternoon and again for sunset. It’s very wide and most of the sand is wet/hardpacked from the tides.

The weather varied while we were there (last week of February through the first week of March). Some days we were in shorts and other days we were in our heaviest coats, mostly due to the wind rather than temperature.

The pier and promenade were 3/4 mile north of the campground. This beach town is so into camping that there are even 3 Airstreams on the pier.

On the weekend, we headed up to Montana de Oro State Park and walked the Bluff Trail which gave us a glimpse of the wild coastline that’s to come as we move further north. The name “Mountain of Gold” comes from the golden wildflowers that bloom in the spring.

We also walked down to the ocean and discovered a new hobby for the next couple of months – tidepooling! We saw anemones, urchins, crabs, and starfish.

After the hike, we walked around the even smaller town of Morro Bay, known for its delicious seafood. The entire waterfront street was just one restaurant after another and there was a nice public boardwalk along the back of all of them. There are also many adorable sea otters that live here. They come close to shore to float in the kelp to keep themselves from drifting away.

Morro Bay is nicknamed “three stacks and a rock” and you can see why in these photos.

The lively college town of San Luis Obispo (SLO by the locals) is 10 miles north of Pismo Beach. SLO has a famous farmers’ market on Thursday nights which is more of a street festival. Unfortunately, we missed it both weeks! The first week I wasn’t feeling well and the second week it was canceled because of rain.

We also visited the San Luis Obispo Mission and got to go inside this one!

Next, we continue exploring California’s Central Coast.