TRAILBLAZING: A national park near you 

How far is too far to drive for a weekend trip? It likely depends on what’s waiting for you on the other end of the pavement. For a national park, I’m going to call it at four hours. In four hours, you can drive to no less than three national parks from our perch in San Luis Obispo and northern Santa Barbara counties. In fact, you should, and here they are:  

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• PHOTO COURTESY OF NPS/KURT MOSES

Pinnacles National Park

Location: 5 miles east of Soledad on Highway 146

Drive time: About two hours

Accomodations: Pinnacles Campground (134 sites) 

At just 11 years old, this is the newest national park near you. It offers a range of hiking opportunities from strenuous trails to short ones that traverse chapparal and oak woodlands, deposit you next to Bear Gulch Reservoir, take you into talus caves created by eons of running water, and/or bring you out to rocky spires where you might get lucky enough to spot a condor, peregrine falcon, or one of 13 species of bats. There’s no backpacking allowed in the park, but on the plus side, the campground has a swimming pool.

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• FILE PHOTO BY CAMILLIA LANHAM

Yosemite National Park

Location: 32 miles east of Mariposa on Highway 140

Drive time: About four hours

Accommodations: 12 campgrounds, two hotels, lodging sites with cabins and tent cabins, backcountry camps

Designated as the third national park in the U.S., Yosemite is famous for sheer granite cliffs like Half Dome; waterfalls such as Bridalveil Fall; big trees, some of which are in the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoia Trees; historic hotels; breathtaking views from just about anywhere in the park; and wildlife. You can check out the scenery by horse or mule, bike, hike, or car during the summer with trails that range from easy to extremely difficult and paved to backcountry wilderness. You can also rock climb, fish, or boat. The only bad thing about this park is its popularity, which means reservations are highly recommended if you want to stay overnight, backpack, rent a bike, or take a horseback ride. The park says you can reserve a spot to sleep up to 366 days in advance and requires a reservation to drive into the park from July 1 through Aug. 16. Nabbing a wilderness permit for overnight hiking is a bit more complicated, but you can reserve one up to 24 weeks in advance.

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• PHOTO COURTESY OF NPS/KEIL MADDOOX

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks

Location: 35 miles east of Visalia on Generals Highway

Drive-time: About three hours

Accommodations: 14 campgrounds, three lodges, two wilderness lodges, backcountry camps 

This is a twofer. Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks adjoin one another and are managed as one park. From the world’s biggest tree (General Sherman) to the one of the deepest canyons in North America (Kings Canyon) and the tallest peak in the lower 48 (Mount Whitney), the parks offer more than 1,300 square miles of protected land to explore, taking visitors from the Sierra Nevada foothills through giant sequoia groves and into the rugged granite-topped mountains with 800 miles of hiking trails. You can drive through a fallen giant tree, go horseback riding, and spelunk a cave all in the same trip. Wilderness permits are required for overnight backcountry stays but limited during quota season from late-May to late-September, when they require a reservation. For the 2024 summer, travelers can expect delays due to construction on Generals Highway.

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• PHOTO COURTESY OF NPS

Channel Islands National Park

Location: A boat ride from the Ventura Harbor

Drive-time: About two hours by car plus one to four hours by boat (islandpackers.com)

Accommodations: Primitive camping

While you can’t exactly drive to this national park, it’s a Central Coast gem and so unique that Channel Islands National Park is worth a mention. These five islands surrounded by a mile of ocean with Anacapa Island as the closest to shore by boat ride (about an hour) offer opportunities to whale watch, kayak, snorkel, dive, and hike with a Pacific Ocean view. Each island is unique, with its own blend of rare species, habitat, and history. Although there is a bathroom on each island, there aren’t any other services, and the only overnight accommodations are backcountry campsites you have to hike to with gear, food, and water in tow. The park warns that such treks should only be undertaken by “experienced, well-conditioned backpackers and kayakers.” Advanced planning is highly recommended, and the sites are available to reserve up to six months in advance. The park recommends several other ways to enjoy what it has to offer—including half-day non-landing boat tours to Anacapa or Santa Cruz Island; a day trip out to one of the islands; or a multi-day, multi-island, live-aboard boat trip.