Goodbye Travel Rut — My New Book is Here

When my husband and I plotted a monthlong trip to Europe, I spent weeks researching every detail. I amassed a bedside mountain of travel books. I quizzed friends about their adventures in the French countryside, scoured travel websites, and rented movies set in our intended destinations (I watched American Dreamer so many times I felt like a regular at Paris’ swanky Hôtel de Crillon). By the time we left, we had an adventurous, offbeat itinerary filled with cool new restaurants to try and treks to out-of-the-way corners I’d missed on previous trips abroad.

But for getaways close to home, I’ve always tended to go for the easy and familiar. Over and over. It’s just so effortless to say, let’s go to Palm Springs, which invariably means checking into the same desert resort my family always visits, with its comfortable, airy rooms and twisting water slide that keeps the kids entertained. Enjoyable, yes. But after the umpteenth trip, hardly exciting.

Then last year I was asked to write a travel book of great weekend getaways in Southern California.

Goodbye travel rut.

Suddenly I began looking at Southern California through fresh eyes. A travel writer’s eyes. Nearly every week I went someplace different: Date nights. Day trips. Weekend treks to my favorite spots and to places I’d always meant to visit, like Cold Springs Tavern near Santa Barbara.

My husband and two children often came along and they had a blast kayaking, horseback riding, swimming, snorkeling, hand-feeding emus, and roaming luscious nature spots from San Diego to the Central Coast. Other times I set out on the road (or train) alone with California writers such as Raymond Chandler, Joan Didion, Kem Nunn, Gidget, and the Steinbecks (John and son Thomas) as my guides.

I sampled my way through two wine countries, played blackjack in the afternoon, cooked alongside a great chef, savored amazing farmers’ markets and ethnic groceries all over, swam with schools of bright, teeming fish, and strapped on water-skis for the first time in years.

I recently wrote about five of my favorite SoCal road trips for the Los Angeles Times and I wanted to share these quick getaways as summer approaches. The story, and this handy Google map, offer a taste of the adventures in my new book, Great Escapes: Southern California, which is being released on Monday.

Flower power

Laura Cohen pulls out a tiny composition book and scribbles madly as we meander through Laguna Canyon Wilderness Park.

She is busily, energetically, joyfully chronicling the triumphant return of the spring wildflowers that practically disappeared from the canyon — and much of Southern California’s other parched wild spaces — in the past few years.

What a difference a few inches of gentle rain makes. This spring the hills are different. Better. Wetter. So lush that Laguna Canyon looks like someone rolled out the green carpet. The blooms seem to multiply overnight and Cohen’s flower journal grows daily with them, the park naturalist’s excitement palpable with each new speck of color bursting amid the grasslands and coastal sage scrub.

Cohen leads the way as we savor stands of willowy coast sunflowers swaying in the afternoon breeze near a couple of inviting picnic tables. Another flash of sweet yellow catches the sun and our attention: small violets called Johnny-Jump-Ups. We stop to watch a hummingbird gorge on flaming orange monkey flowers, then we roam past fuchsia-flowered gooseberry plants, white popcorn flowers, tangles of prickly wild cucumbers, and purple phacelia poking out between the rocks. Farther up along the trails, bright ruby poppies dance along Serrano Ridge. In all, Cohen catalogs more than twenty different wildflowers. Her prized discovery: delicate pink clumps of owl’s clover. “It’s very rare,” she says, “one of my favorite plants.”

Across Southern California, from coastal fields and hillsides to the desert’s sprawling wild lands, botanists and park rangers and flower lovers of all species are reveling in the best wildflower season in recent memory. It’s a great time of year to pack a picnic lunch and just wander.

I wrote about Southern California’s wildflowers for the Los Angeles Times Magazine this weekend and you can read the story here.

Laguna Coast Wilderness Park, of course, is a magical place any time of year. Other wildflower spots include the California Poppy Reserve in the Antelope Valley; Anza-Borrego Desert State Park; and Joshua Tree National Park. The wildflower season is expected to last into May.

Aquatic adventures

My friend Kate snapped this lovely photo at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. The aquarium is a great outing – plenty to do, but manageable too. Springtime fare ranges from free Shark Lagoon Nights on Fridays to boat tours of one of the word’s most active ports  to whale watching expeditions  (through May 31) in the waters near San Pedro Channel. 

More on whale watching: Check out the Kids Off the Couch website for other whale treks along the Southern California coast.  Or head to Malibu’s Point Dume, where you often can stand out along the shore and watch the California Gray Whales cruise by. No boat required.

36 hours in Pasadena

The New YorkTimes features a family-friendly weekend escape to the City of Roses. Jennifer Steinhauer stops by the Norton Simon Museum, Distant Lands Travel Bookstore and the Kidspace Children’s Museum. She wisely suggests spending an entire day at the nearby Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens, which is magical this time of year. Check out the 36-hour slide show here.

Don’t miss this: The Huntington just opened its $18 million Chinese Garden, Liu Fang Yuan, the Garden of Flowing Fragrance, this past month. Recent stories: LA Times, Wall Street Journal.

Weekend Cowboy

The drive up the mountain to Rankin Ranch is just nine miles long. Yet it seems a much longer trek as you slowly climb the narrow, winding highway with its hairpin turns, stunning sunset views, and army of fearless cattle that snack along the slopes and regularly amble into the middle of the road.

Cows far outnumber humans in this pristine corner of Southern California’s Tehachapi Mountains, just two and a half hours—and another universe entirely—from Los Angeles. It takes a good 30 minutes to reach the top of the mountain, where the two-lane highway twists through a final set of curves, then spills into a lush green valley. Just up ahead you’ll find Quarter Circle U Rankin Ranch, a 31,000-acre slice of old California heaven.

They’ve raised cattle on the ranch since Walter Rankin imported the first herd of white-faced Herefords in 1863 in the midst of the Civil War, and cattle is still the family business. For the past four decades, the Rankin clan also opens the ranch six months of the year to weekend cowboys and nature-lovers.

Ranch Ranch starts its new season in mid-March. It’s one of the destinations featured in my book, Great Escapes: Southern California. Here’s a story I wrote about the ranch for the Los Angeles Times Travel Section a while back.