‘The happiest town in America’
San Luis Obispo is everything to come to California for, minus the tourists, writes Craig Tansley.
San Luis Obispo (SLO) is conveniently located exactly halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Which is totally inconvenient if you’re staying in either city, because it means San Luis Obispo is about as far away as you can go (between the two cities).
Which is maybe why none of us have ever been there, and most of us have never heard of it. Even the army of California Highway One devotees leave it off their itineraries, despite the fact you drive past it on the journey from LA to San Francisco (or the other way round).
And yet, SLO is everything we come to California for, minus the tourists. I’ve long driven past it, too.
This time, I take the turnoff. Two minutes later I’m cruising SLO’s Old District beneath a cathedral of fig and oak trees and bougainvillaea, along palm tree-lined boulevards, and surrounded by the kind of Spanish Colonial architecture that gets people wild about Santa Barbara.
People are dining and drinking al fresco on the footpaths, at cafes, restaurants and bars where thick green vine and jasmine grow along brick work exteriors.
There are murals where the foliage isn’t and Christmas lights are strewn across the streets.
A slow-moving river cuts the town clean in half. Beyond this dreamy central Californian streetscape, pretty green hills cocoon us all in a valley. It’s 27C and I can’t spot a single cloud, one of the 315 days of sunshine SLO receives in a year.
‘‘They call SLO the happiest town in America,’’ a waiter tells me. ‘‘It’s old California, life’s slow, life’s good, nothing’s hard. People come for the wine and stay for the hospitality.’’
I’m staying at a new hotel near the middle of the Old District. There’s a distillery by reception and the kind of rooftop pool that makes me feel like I’m still in LA.
When I look down across SLO and its boulevards of palm trees it’s as if I’ve been transplanted onto the Eagles’ Hotel California album cover.
I’m on the doorstep of two of California’s most underrated wine regions here (Paso Robles and SLO). Wine lovers crowd out better-known Californian regions, such as Napa, but here I discover endless valleys of family-owned wineries.
There are more than 100 tasting rooms within an hour’s drive and I’m the only one tasting at most of them.
I don’t have to leave SLO to sample some of the best bottles, mind you as tasting rooms are set all across town, between the craft breweries, the distilleries and some of California’s best up-andcoming farm-to-table restaurants.
And while SLO isn’t on the coast, it is only 15 minutes away. I drive through forest and past lagoons into California’s best coastal state park, Montana de Oro State Park. That translates to Mountains of Gold for the dramatic ocean bluffs that rise straight out of the Pacific and the wildflowers that bloom here, mostly in spring.
I take the Bluff (hiking) Trail along the edge of sea cliffs. Southern sea otters and harbour seals play below in tide pools and I watch them kangaroo-hop across the entire bay. I’m on a whale trail here, one of the best locations on the central coast to watch humpbacks migrate.
It’s another 15 minutes’ drive north to Morro Bay, a beach town set on a harbour famous for the state’s best oysters, where I go to watch the sunset from a restaurant built right out on the water.
There are tiny surfing and fishing communities north and south along the coast but I like that when the coastal fog (famous along the California coast) comes in, all I need do is drive 15 minutes east to SLO and I’m guaranteed of blue sky.
Returning to SLO starts to feel like going home anyway. I like its small-town vibe, and the fact everyone owns a dog, and that there are no chain stores or fast-food outlets, and that no matter what day of the week it is, there are always locals gathered at a bar watching someone play guitar as the sun sets.