The Pacific Coast Highway Is Still the Best Drive in America
You can drive PCH a hundred times and it never quite feels the same. The light changes, the towns change, the playlist changes — but the pull of it, that long unspooling of coast road between cliffs and ocean, stays exactly what it always was.
We took a long weekend and drove it end to end — Malibu to Mendocino, no freeway, no shortcuts. This is what we found, what we'd do differently, and why we'd do it all again.
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The trick, we learned, is resisting the urge to plan too tightly. The best moments happened when we pulled off for no particular reason — a viewpoint with no name on the map, a town that looked interesting from the highway, a coffee stop that turned into two hours.
Leave early. Bring a physical map even if you don't use it. Keep the tank above half. Everything else can be figured out as you go.