Forget the palm-fringed clichés of SoCal and NorCal — this is SLOCal, where surfboards outnumber spreadsheets and retro diners still serve coffee in bottomless mugs. From dune bashing to beachcombing, Larry discovers a California with the dial turned down…
There is a certain poetry to jetlag. In its disorientation, one finds moments of unexpected clarity — like standing at the window of a clapperboard coastal inn before dawn, watching light creep across a sleeping ocean. In California, of course, the sun rises behind you. But its first strokes of light paint the Pacific with a gossamer sheen, and it’s in that ethereal glow that I first glimpsed Pismo Beach, with its long stretch of sand, and historic pier extending into the morning mist.
This is SLOCal — or, more formally, San Luis Obispo county — a name that rarely features on Californian itineraries. Not to be confused with SoCal, or LoCal — or SlowMo, for that matter — it is wedged, somewhat anonymously, between the gravitational pulls of San Francisco and Los Angeles, and where most travellers pass through en route along Highway 1, heads turned toward wine country or coastal icons. That’s their loss.
Because tucked in this less-travelled coastal cradle is a California that whispers rather than shouts — a place not just different in geography, but in soul.
“Not LA, not the Bay,” is how the locals dub it, and they’re right. Drive just a few hours from either metropolis and you’re ushered into an entirely different rhythm — one of rolling hills, sleepy towns, and a rugged coastline worlds apart from its built-up, sprawling siblings. There are no looming billboards here, no tech-startup sheen or Hollywood gloss. What you find instead is something more elemental. This is not just a California that is different in place, it’s a California from a different era.
I arrive in Pismo Beach after a leisurely drive from Big Sur, checking into The Vespera, a low-slung seaside property perched at the foot of the pier. The reception smells of sea salt and fresh coffee; as if on cue, two surfers, barefoot and board in-hand, amble past me in the lobby. There’s something timeless in their presence. The hotel’s wide veranda opens onto the sand, where the Pacific rolls in hypnotic waves, its cadence as calming as the decor — a palette of pale driftwood and sun-bleached whites. Come sunset, as the ocean swells into gold, from the balcony, sipping a craft beer with a name as entertaining as its taste, I wonder; this is California, certainly, but it’s one you’ve never seen.
Pismo itself is a town in no rush. Its charms are understated: pastel clapboard homes cling to hillsides, vintage cars lounge outside mid-century homes in Shell Beach, and the high street hosts diners and surf shops that seem frozen in time. The Cool Cat Café offers malt shakes beneath chrome signage. At the Rock & Roll Diner — fashioned from two retrofitted rail cars — I tuck into huevos rancheros as Roy Orbison croons from a chrome jukebox. I feel like I should be in board shorts with matted, salt-infused hair, and I may be boardless, but if I wanted to get a sense of freedom and letting my hair down to shake off the flight and the shackles of city life, that would come from my ride parked just outside.
There’s one way to get into SLO Cal’s coast and that is to go dune bashing in an open-top ‘hummer’. With sweeping dunes to rival the Sahara – indeed, they doubled for Egypt in DeMille’s The Ten Commandments – my driver, ex-marine Shane, takes us across Oceano’s massive beach and we cut inland to where sand undulates as far inland to the horizon. We surge up crests, tip into bowls, and slide sideways with the giddy thrill of schoolchildren on a snow day. It’s exhilarating, exhausting, and entirely unexpected.
For a softer pace, Avila Beach beckons — a pocket-sized village of clapboard houses and vine-draped patios. Best reached by bicycle along a shaded trail, it rewards the effort with a farm shop brimming with local produce, and waterfront eateries where fish tacos are best paired with views and a little eavesdropping. “I come here to decompress,” says a woman at the next table. I nod in quiet agreement.
Further north, the personality shifts again. Cambria is storybook quaint, with artsy storefronts and a stillness matched only by the Cotswolds. Cayucos, meanwhile, blends Wild West and surfer cool — part frontier outpost, part Polzeath surf shack, with sun-faded signage and a café called The Hidden Kitchen that serves blue corn waffles with breakfast combinations hitherto uninvented and bottomless coffee in mismatching mugs. Dee-Lite plays from a Bluetooth speaker, and I consider trading my linen shirt for something more…salt-crusted. Two days in and I could really get used to this lifestyle.
If there’s a name you might recognise, it’s likely Morro Bay — dominated by the hulking form of Morro Rock, like a sentinel rising from the sea. As if the pace of life couldn’t get any slower, I take an electric boat and glide about the lagoon, as effortlessly as the whale accompanying us that had crept in surreptitiously.
Between there and Pismo, the road threads through Montana de Oro State Park, a patchwork of coastal cliffs, hidden coves, and eucalyptus groves that feel more Ireland than LA. It’s indicative of why this whole coastline feels so timeless; development here is wisely limited, by law and by sentiment, preserving this region’s unrushed soul. There is space, both literal and emotional, to breathe.
This is not just a tour down the California coast. It’s a gentle subversion of every assumption you might hold about the Golden State. No showbiz, no sheen — just surfers and sunsets, railcars and retro diners, tacos and tides.
And so, SLOCal begins to work its slow, deliberate magic on me. Part two awaits inland, but for now, I linger a little longer by the ocean…
Larry’s ‘slow’ Cal saunter continues next weekend, when he’s in awe of a tycoon’s castle and in alarm at a motel’s interior decor…
Photos by the author
