SAN LUIS OBISPO
San Luis Obispo is on California’s central coast, right in-between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Known as a town with a really relaxed pace, the nickname, ‘SLO’ really suits the town’s personality.
My boyfriend and I spent Memorial Day weekend here and it was our first “travel” outside of the Bay Area since shelter-in-place. We spent the majority of our time in nature so we did a great job social distancing! Here is a weekend guide to what we did in SLO.
DAY 1
We left San Francisco in the morning and drove straight down to Nipomo, which is really close to SLO. Our adorable Airbnb was located in this area. I recommend staying in this quaint Airbnb if you visit SLO! It is an RV in the host’s backyard with a full kitchen and bathroom. The best part is that there is a goat, 5 ducks, and multiple chickens that roam the yard that you can play with. We got farm-fresh duck and chicken eggs each morning.
We got to the Airbnb, put our stuff down, and immediately started playing with the animals. The goat, Donnie, was so funny to be around. She kept trying to charge at me and chased me all over the yard. The chickens were wonderful to watch too. Our host had some really unique kinds like a Polish and dark Brahma chicken. The ducks always stayed in a little squad together and walked around in circles.
After watching the animals for a bit, we walked to California Grill Nipomo, which was right down the street, to grab lunch. From the menu, we got garlic fries, the Ortega burger, and the Wild West burger. Since we found a couple eggs in the hen’s nesting box, we made some eggs to add to our burgers. This touch made the burgers so much more delicious!
After lunch, we drove out to the sand dunes. There are multiple access points to the dunes but the way I recommend is driving to the Pacific Dunes Ranch and RV Resort, parking in the small lot near the horse stables, and then walking through the RV and trailer park. There are small shrubs on the edges of the trailer park that lead into the dunes with a few trail openings to access the sand dunes. We walked through the shrubs and eventually got to the base of the dunes. We climbed on the sand to the top, which was insane...it felt like we were in the Sahara desert! We were surrounded by dunes and could only see sand around us.
We ran around in the sand, slid down a bunch of the hills, and just spent lots of time playing here. We walked towards the beach area to look at the coast, then flew my drone around in the dunes for some time. The dunes make for very picturesque shots so flying my drone was a lot of fun here. It’s possible to spend hours just chilling in the dunes because of how beautiful and entertaining they are.
Since it was nearing evening, we wanted to go somewhere to watch the sunset, so we drove to Dinosaur Caves Park to walk around the park and watch the sunset from the cliffs. Surprisingly, people here didn’t seem to care too much about COVID, so we kept a social distance when walking around. There are so many beautiful flowers along the pathway here that make walking around so much more enjoyable. We watched the sunset near the giant rock here that had hundreds of birds living on it. Such nice views.
Since it was dinner time, we stopped by the Vons near our Airbnb to get groceries for our meal. As soon as we got home, we made a delicious dinner and ate our meal on the little patio outside the RV, so we could watch the chickens sleep and the ducks walk around in circles. Our Airbnb host had a Nintendo 64, so we played old school Mario Kart before going to bed.
DAY 2
We got so lucky this morning because the backyard ducks laid eggs! I collected 4 duck eggs for us and we made a delicious breakfast to start the day. We ate oatmeal with berries, duck eggs, bacon, and orange juice.
The weather was incredible so we wanted to go to the beach today. We drove to Pirates Cove Beach, which is a gorgeous beach at the bottom of a cliffside hike and right next to Smugglers Cave. We hiked along Shell Beach Bluff Trail for a bit to get a good look of the view and then walked back down towards the beach. The beach is so nice and the location is wonderful. We spent some time here swimming in the water and lying on the beach - which unfortunately was covered in sand fleas so be careful of those when visiting.
After the beach, we wanted to take a look at the downtown area, so we drove around the streets of SLO. If restaurants and shops were all open, downtown would definitely be pleasantly crowded! It is such a quaint area and is great for walking around and just relaxing.
We drove to Cerro San Luis afterward, which is a mountain that is great for hiking. We climbed up the mountain to the top and had an amazing view of all of SLO. The hike up was a good workout because it was all uphill, but the view was very worth it. We sat up here for a long time just playing Eye Spy and enjoying the location.
We wanted to catch a nice sunset so we went to Avila Beach to walk around and watch. The colors of the sunset were so beautiful and reflected nicely on the water. Avila beach has really calm, light waves in the evening, so we got to walk along the shore and watch birds flying around as well. Really great way to end our day!
DAY 3
We made one last delicious breakfast with fresh chicken eggs before taking off. After departing our wonderful Airbnb, we drove straight to Morro Rock, which is a rock formed from extinct volcanoes! There was a little beach in that area where we relaxed in the sand. We went into the cold water for a bit too.
At the end of the walkway of Morro Rock state park, there is a huge collection of rock stacks. My boyfriend and I called it the “Rock Stack Museum” because so many visitors spent time creating and balancing rocks. We decided to make our own as well.
San Luis Obispo is definitely a hidden gem of California, and it is especially worth visiting if you are planning a trip to our beautiful state!