Itinerary

Itinerary

Carmel is a small beach town along the northern coast of california. 2 hour drive south from San Francisco. I went over the summer with some friends. Here was our guide.

 

We flew from DFW to MRY. It's a very small airport and you exit the plane outside. Carmel is about a 10 minute drive from there. It is high up altitude wise so your ears might pop. Most of the hotels are individual entities so not many chains. Luckily my friend had a vacation home in town. It is also very popular to rent vacation homes.  (https://www.carmelrealtycompany.com/view-vacation-homes.htm for some options) For our first day we didn't have much to do so we walked around town and got lunch at a great coffee shop called Cafe Luna. They have great coffee cake and ramen. After that we went and stopped by the beach to see the water. It was very cloudy when we were there. (Late june early july). Dinner at The Bench but be warned it's on a golf course and a table next to us got hit by a golf ball.

I woke up way earlier than my friend so decided to go on a walk and get some breakfast. I went to Rise + Roam which was amazing and had the best salmon and chive cream cheese toast ever. That day we decided to see a movie since it was still a little cloudy so we went to Del Monte shopping center. We saw No Hard Feelings which was hilarious. Walked around for a little while and had lunch at a poke spot in the shopping center. Went back and made smores in my friends backyard then jumped into the hot tub before dinner. Dinner at La Bicyclette and had their “Champignons” pizza which was a truffle flavored pizza. 

Walked to Rise + Roam for the salmon toast again and got one of their chocolate croissants which was perfect. Today was still cloudy so we went into Monterey and saw the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Afterwards we were tired of all the marine layers so we went into Carmel valley which was sunny and about 10 degrees warmer. We went to Earthbound Farm Stand which is a coffee shop and farm where you can pay and pick your own strawberry. Then we drove to Point Lobos State Nature Reserve which has tons of trails or you can just drive around. We chose to drive around and have all the windows down for the fresh air. Dinner at Sushi Heaven. 

Finally a sunny day so after I walked to Rise + Roam again we decided to drive out to Pebble Beach Club. (A country club with an amazing golf course where they have had the masters. There are also many homes you can buy and a hotel called The Lodge at Pebble Beach) We had lunch by the pool overlooking the bay. Since it was sunny we went and laid on the beach in Carmel and also went to hike around Point Lobos State Nature Reserve. Where we saw tons of seals was China Cove on the southern end of the park near Bird Island. (An Island covered in bird poop) If you're into architecture, drive along the coast going back into town to see The Butterfly House. We then drove back into pebble beach to do the 17 mile drive. For dinner we just got take out from Tommy Wok.

We had a later flight so we just hung around the firepit in my friends backyard then walked around town a final time and headed to MRY. TSA was short but its a very small airport and only has about 5 gates.