In late 2024, we made a trip up to Gualala and Salt Point State Park (SP).
My friend Tom takes his trailer up on an adventure every year. With him, you never know where we’re going, or where we’re going to end up or who we will meet. He’s that kind of adventurous, spontaneous guy that makes travel with a true adventure. It’s a special treat, and an upgrade from our usual camping outings where we have to haul our entire house into a tent. Here, we have a whole house we get to tow along :).
We arrived at the campground, and there was no running water and it was raining. Not like that’s going to deter us!
We decided to go for a misty hike, decked out in all our rain gear. With no real destination, we set out towards the ocean. What we were rewarded with was spectacular – a rugged, surging coastline that felt more like Northern Ireland than Northern California. It was green, misty, and the surf was mesmerizing to watch. So we saw down on some rocks and did that for a while.
Wandering around, we found mushrooms and natural springs around.
We found this clump of mushrooms that we debated whether they were edible or not (eventually, the grownups ate them, not the kids), and kept finding natural springs in the area that would bubble up and squirt water up to the ground level.
Encouraged by our findings, we kept exploring and found some Ireland-inspired rock outcroppings. The adults climbed those while the kids had fun splashing around.
Day #2: Exploring Salt Point SP
The coastline was epic that day:
The kids enjoyed discovering the natural springs that kept bubbling up along the path, and the water made the scenery that much more dramatic:
Every quarter mile, the scenery changed and there was another awe-inspiring vista.
Eventually, we came across a creek we could not cross. So we decided to explore and see what we could find.
The kids, being small, were excellent at squeezing into cracks between the rocks and kept finding new areas of the beach. We later learned that these coves had been used for honest-to-goodness smugglers to stash their alcohol goods during the prohibition. What a neat piece of history.
When you explore, you tend to find things. Neat spaces in between the rocks that we could climb through. Shiny mother-of-pearl shells. And things you don’t come across every day.
The hike was about 4.2 miles, plus extra for rock climbing, exploring, and scrambling. So of course, on the way back, the kids needed some carrying time from the grownups, which as always, was a sweet moment.
We ended the day with a drive up to Tom’s friend’s ranch and a dinner in the trailer.
Day #3: Meeting up with local friends, checking out the Gualala Community
We had arrived at night time the evening before, so we really didn’t know where we were or what to expect. When we woke up, we were in for a treat.
They had chickens, their own water supply, a dome Air B&B, a litter of half-built remote-working pods, and a fully functional dream wood shop that would be any woodworker’s dream.
We had a very fun adventure trying to turn the trailer around in a space much too small for it. This involved nearly clipping the portable pods and house on the property by inches a handful of times..
Besides exploring the 22-acre property, the highlight of the day was going to a local beach and having pizza while watching the kids splash around in ice-cold arctic stream water, while watching the sun go down. I still don’t know how they can be so gung-ho for running in the water when it’s coming down from Alaska and the arctic down the coast.
And warming up by the fire before all the kids (and grownups) passed out from a full day adventuring.
Day #4: Local Beach and Drive Home
On the last day, we stopped by another local beach on the way back home. It was pretty barren and we had the beach pretty much all to ourselves. There was a small fee to get in, which we’re always happy to pay to support local parks, but I think that deters locals from coming here since they can go to one of the many free beaches in the area.
There’s something magical about unleashing a group of kids on a beach. It’s an endless canvas for them to draw on, mess up, move around, and explore- with no right or wrong answers. Our kids soaked up that opportunity
We created some relay-race games on the beach with kids vs. grown-up races (with heavy handicaps to the grownups- e.g. running 2x the distance), and kid-carries and washed-up log carries across the beach. It was a fun and raucous creative morning where we got to play, have fun, and spend time wandering the beach solo- a perfect end to a wonderful trip.
The trip ended with some very sleepy kids, some accidentally beautiful backroads (whoops, I missed a couple turns) and a relaxed, beautiful ride home along the infamous Highway 1.