California
From the Colorado River crossing of Route 66 to its end on the Santa Monica Pier — Death Valley's below-sea-level basins, the gold country of the Mother Lode, the granite passes of the Sierra, and the desert California the coast never sees.
All of California, One Map
Tap any dot to discover what makes a place worth the stop.
Plan a Trip
Day-by-day plans — real drive times, honest overnights, and the permit fine print sorted before you leave.
Scenic Drives
The roads themselves — traced end to end, with the stops worth making along the way.
California 190: Across Death Valley
The road across Death Valley exists because of borax: the twenty-mule-team haul, the company that sold the scenery once the mineral ran out, and the drive from Olancha to the salt.
Route 66 in California: Needles to the Pacific
The Mother Road's last three hundred fifty miles: the Colorado River at Needles, the emptiest surviving pavement on the whole route, Cajon Pass, and the Pacific at the end of it.
U.S. 395: The Eastern Sierra
The one road along the east wall of the Sierra: Payahuunadü and Manzanar, the Whitney and bristlecone spurs, Mono Lake, and Bodie at the end of thirteen miles of Bodie Road.
Regions of California
Each region gathers the parks, towns, drives, and roadside stops that define one corner of the state.
Death Valley & the Basin Ranges
The Timbisha homeland the maps call Death Valley — the lowest ground in North America, the Panamint wall above it, Trona's tufa spires, and an opera house in the middle of the Amargosa desert.
Eastern Sierra & Owens Valley
Payahuunadü, the land of flowing water — US-395 under the Sierra escarpment, the Alabama Hills, Manzanar's hard history, Bishop, Mono Lake's tufa towers, and the ghost town of Bodie kept in arrested decay.
Gold Country & the Northern Passes
Highway 49 through the Mother Lode — Coloma, where the Gold Rush began, the living main streets it left behind, Sacramento at the head of US-50, and the emigrant passes at Donner and Tahoe.
Joshua Tree & the Southern Deserts
Two deserts meet at Joshua Tree — Mojave high, Colorado low — with Pioneertown's film-set main street, the accidental Salton Sea, Salvation Mountain, and the badlands and dark skies of Anza-Borrego.
Route 66 & the Mojave Heartland
Route 66 crosses the Colorado at Needles and runs its emptiest miles — Amboy, the Kelso Depot, Calico's silver hills, and Barstow's Harvey House — through the homeland of the 'Aha Makhav, the People by the River.
Route 66 West: Cajon to the Sea
The Mother Road's last miles — down Cajon Pass into Tovaangar, the Tongva world, past the Wigwam Motel and Pasadena's Colorado Boulevard to the pier at Santa Monica, where the road runs out at the Pacific.
Stories from California
The histories behind the places — the people, the disasters, the inventions, and the long memory of the land.
