The Pacific is the smallest part of our record, and we would rather say that up front than let a full looking page suggest otherwise. Most of what we know of this coast comes from two stretches. The first is the year San Diego was home, from March 2022 to April 2023, which included a season as camp hosts up on Mount Laguna. The second is the drive in the middle of it: forty-nine days from San Diego to Denver the long way, through Sequoia, Yosemite, the redwoods, the Oregon coast, Olympic, Rainier and on to Glacier.
So this page knows Southern California in every month, because we lived there. North of Los Angeles it mostly knows one late summer, August and September 2022, with Portland in July 2016 and May 2017 before that.
Everything below is read off the dates on our own photographs, the same as the other regional guides. Where we have no dated photos from a month, the page says so instead of guessing. If you want that drive told as a story, it is The West Coast Roadtrip. This page answers the other question: when to go, and what we found there in a given month.
Which months we can actually speak for
Every photograph we took on the Pacific coast, counted by the month we took it, across 4 different years from 2016. Not the trips: every frame, including the months we were living somewhere rather than driving. An empty column is a month we have no photographs from here at all, and a short one means a quiet month rather than an absent one.
- 17 January: 17 frames
- 0 February: no record
- 40 March: 40 frames
- 42 April: 42 frames
- 149 May: 149 frames
- 2 June: 2 frames
- 8 July: 8 frames
- 329 August: 329 frames
- 451 September: 451 frames
- 0 October: no record
- 69 November: 69 frames
- 26 December: 26 frames
Washington
8 of 12 places · 2022
The Olympic Peninsula, Rainier, Puget Sound and the long road east to Spokane.
We have been here in Sep
The stories from here The West Coast Roadtrip
- North Cascades NP no dated photos yet
- Bellingham no dated photos yet
- Port Angeles Sep 2022
- Lake Crescent Sep 2022
- Forks / Quileute Sep 2022
- Hoh Rainforest Sep 2022
- Olympic NP been, no dated photos
- Spokane Sep 2022
- Seattle Sep 2022
- Tacoma no dated photos yet
- Mount Rainier NP Sep 2022
- Long Beach WA Sep 2022
Oregon and the Columbia
7 of 9 places · 2016, 2017, 2022
The north coast, Portland and the Gorge, and Crater Lake in the Cascades.
We have been here in MayJulSep
The stories from here The West Coast Roadtrip
- Astoria OR Sep 2022
- Seaside OR Sep 2022
- Cannon Beach Sep 2022
- Hood River OR May 2017
- Columbia River Gorge May 2017
- Portland OR May, Jul 2016 and after
- Bend OR no dated photos yet
- Eugene OR no dated photos yet
- Crater Lake NP Sep 2022
The Redwoods and Northern California
4 of 6 places · 2022
The redwood coast from the Oregon line down to Eureka, and Lassen and Sacramento inland.
We have been here in Sep
The stories from here The West Coast Roadtrip
- Jedediah Smith / Trees of Mystery Sep 2022
- Gold Bluffs Beach Sep 2022
- Redwood NP Sep 2022
- Eureka CA Sep 2022
- Lassen Volcanic NP no dated photos yet
- Sacramento been, no dated photos
The Bay Area and the Central Coast
3 of 9 places · 2022
San Francisco and Marin, then Highway 1 south through Monterey and Big Sur to Santa Barbara.
We have been here in Aug
The stories from here The West Coast Roadtrip
- Muir Beach Aug 2022
- Sausalito Aug 2022
- San Francisco Aug 2022
- Santa Cruz been, no dated photos
- Monterey been, no dated photos
- Pinnacles NP no dated photos yet
- Big Sur been, no dated photos
- San Luis Obispo been, no dated photos
- Santa Barbara been, no dated photos
Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon
3 of 3 places · 2022
The Sierra Nevada parks.
We have been here in Aug
The stories from here The West Coast Roadtrip
- Yosemite NP Aug 2022
- Kings Canyon NP Aug 2022
- Sequoia NP Aug 2022
Southern California
10 of 12 places · 2022, 2023
Los Angeles down the coast to San Diego, and the mountains behind it. Home from March 2022 to April 2023.
We have been here in JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
- Los Angeles been, no dated photos
- Channel Islands NP no dated photos yet
- San Clemente Aug 2022
- Oceanside Aug, Nov 2022 and after
- Carlsbad CA Jan, Mar, Apr, Aug, Nov, Dec 2022 and after
- Julian CA Mar, Apr, Aug 2022 and after
- Mount Laguna CA Mar, Apr, May 2022 and after
- La Jolla Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Dec 2022 and after
- Belmont Park SD Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, Nov, Dec 2022 and after
- Ocean Beach SD Mar, May, Nov 2022 and after
- Balboa Park Mar, Aug 2022 and after
- San Diego Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec 2022 and after
The California Desert
2 of 2 places · 2022
Death Valley and Joshua Tree.
We have been here in Nov
- Death Valley NP Nov 2022
- Joshua Tree NP Nov 2022
What this page does not know
16 of the 53 places above are ones we have no dated photographs from. Some we have been to and some we haven't. They are listed anyway, and labeled, because a guide that quietly dropped them would read as though we had covered the whole Pacific coast.
The season band above and the place lists below are counted differently, on purpose. The band is every photograph we took, so it sees the months we were living somewhere and not driving. The lists are places from our trip record, which finds the drives well and finds standing still badly. That gap is why San Diego, where we lived from March 2022 to April 2023, would otherwise read as a few drives through rather than a year that covered every month.
If you already know roughly where you are going, build the route and it will tell you which month fits it.