11-Nights Classic California Road Trip - Tailormade Journeys — CALL

Channel Islands National Park is one of the great undiscovered attractions in California. It encompasses the five northernmost Channel Islands, which are seaward extensions of the Santa Monica Mountains.

The establishment of the 250,000-acre/101,250-hectare national park (half of this area is underwater) was the culmination of preservation efforts that began with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938. All five islands in the park can be visited—conditions permitting. There are three Channel Islands that are not part of the national park: San Nicolas and San Clemente are owned by the U.S. government and can't be visited, but Santa Catalina is a well-known tourist destination.

Luxuriant 24-mi-/38-km-long Santa Cruz Island has the most to offer first-time visitors. Take a guided Nature Conservancy hike, kayak just offshore, scuba dive and explore sea caves, or watch birds.

Another good choice is Anacapa Island. It's the closest to the mainland, just 11 mi/17 km from Oxnard; hence many people start there. A visit begins with a 154-step climb up from the boat landing to the island plateau. There's a nature trail as well as a lighthouse and a museum. Overnight camping is possible with advance arrangements. The other islands in the park are Santa Barbara, Santa Rosa and San Miguel.

The national park visitors center is located at the harbor in Ventura (on the mainland, 75 mi/120 km northwest of Los Angeles), and it's the best source for current information about each island, including camping and other permit requirements.

The Channel Islands has some of the best scuba diving in the world, and is home to a number of animal species not found on mainland California. There, you enter the realm of the mighty giant kelp forest, bright orange garibaldi fish, the small but beautiful blue-banded gobie, and large schools of jacks, sardine and senoritas. Lobsters also thrive in this area, luring eager lobster hunters for the October-March season. The visitors center in Ventura on the mainland is open daily. Phone 805-658-5730. http://www.nps.gov/chis/index.htm.

Carmel, California, is the kind of place where a person might hand you a poem in the street. It's where at dawn you can get a strong cup of coffee in hand and take a long walk down the beach. You can learn anything you want about dogs, have an authentic Ayurvedic massage and watch the setting sun go flat as a disc on the ocean horizon, then turn around and observe waterfowl leaving skims of silver wake on the Carmel River before daylight disappears.

At night you can stay up late singing to a crowd at Clint Eastwood's Mission Ranch piano bar, catch a new play in a small theater, cuddle around a beach campfire and stroll back to your hotel along sleepy streets under the stars. You can spend a lot of money in glitzy boutique stores or spend very little at Point Lobos State Nature Reserve.

A place of romance, beauty and culture, Carmel was developed in the early 20th century by artists, poets and visionaries, and its residents have retained its friendly, small-town, sophisticated character. You might even be inspired to write your own verse—and share it back.

Carmel is located at the southern end of Monterey Peninsula, just a few miles/kilometers south of Monterey. The town's refreshingly calm atmosphere results, in part, from strict zoning laws that ban neon, traffic lights and other trappings of urban development. The town also seems to have banned empty parking spaces: Expect to spend some time searching for one.

The residential district has no sidewalks or streetlights, and there is no mail delivery. Homes are known by their names rather than addresses. Carmel received a lot of press in the mid-1980s when Clint Eastwood was its mayor.