An excellent reason to visit the Bay Area of California is to visit Muir Woods National Monument. What makes Muir Woods so special and different is its acres of giant, ancient redwood trees.
Muir Woods can make you humble. It’s not just the size of these enormous trees, at nearly 300 feet tall, that is difficult to document in a photograph. Or how the trees soar into space like a green cathedral.
Personally, I find visiting Muir Woods a spiritual, meditative experience. Indeed the sign at Cathedral Grove tells visitors to “enter quietly.” Many logs have a green coat of moss, while ferns and other verdant bushes cover the ground.
There are six miles of hiking trails at Muir Woods, named for pioneering naturalist and ‘father of the National Parks’ John Muir. The main trail is only about a mile. Beginning at the visitor’s center, it circles Redwood Creek on both sides of the stream.
The forest floor is fairly flat. Wood decking makes much of the loop trail accessible to wheelchair users and strollers, both of which I saw on my recent visit.
Some of the trees are split on the bottom, making for selfies “inside the redwood.” The history of Muir Woods is also interesting, both for the struggle to preserve it and because the founding members of the UN met there on May 19, 1945. The meeting was held “to honor the memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, thirty-first President of the United States, Chief Architect of the United Nations and apostle of lasting peace for all mankind.” FDR had died of a stroke in April 1945.
Yet the 80 years since the end of World War II and the conference are but a blip in the life of a redwood. Individual redwood trees are far older than the 250-year-old United States in which they reside. Indeed, a slice of one redwood tree shows it was already 150 years old when William the Conqueror won the battle of Hastings in 1066. Another, which pre-dates the building of cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in 1100, was born in 909AD.
Nonetheless, the redwood was regarded as a resource. According to a guide, 96% of California’s redwoods were cut down from the 19th century to today.
What makes redwood lumber so beloved? Builders appreciated the remarkably strong, gorgeous wood that launched a million California decks. At my first home in West Hollywood, I installed a redwood deck. It was beautiful, and the tannins in the redwood made it resistant to bugs.
Now, redwood is hard to find at your local Home Depot. But find the towering redwoods at Muir Woods you will.
Muir Woods National Monument remains home to one of the largest surviving groups of the biggest trees on earth.
These are the coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) .The coastal redwoods grow from northern California into Oregon. They grow
The website maxtravelz.com is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.
Redwoods is one of my favorite National Parks and it shares one aspect with my other favorites: otherworldliness. Being there really feels like you’ve been transported to another world, because there’s no other place like it on this one. Sure, there are forests elsewhere. There are even forests on coasts, but not like this. Coastal redwoods, the trees that give the park its name, are the tallest in the world.
Governor Gavin Newsom and Visit California CEO Caroline Beteta just broke the news that California still retains the largest market share of tourism in the entire United States. According to new data released today, travel spending in the Golden State reached a record high of $150.4 billion in 2023, outstripping the previous record amount of $144.9 billion seen in 2019.
Settling yourself for a week or a weekend on a car-free island can come with unexpected benefits: the joy of getting around via bicycle, the conversations that happen while walking from one place to another, the hilarity of golfcart transportation. But while we all love a good road trip, sometimes the car is just a means to getting from point a to point b. On these islands, even the getting around is part of the fun. Not to mention its stress-free and incredibly freeing for everyone coming along on the trip.
Rife with pristine beaches and sprawling sand dunes, Nantucket has served as one of the Bay State’s foremost tourist destinations for well over a century—and to sweeten the deal, this scenic island also comes complete with a thriving food scene for visitors to enjoy. Seafood reigns supreme around the island, with no shortage of classic Massachusetts dishes up for grabs spanning from lobster rolls to New England clam chowder, while high-end wines can be encountered all throughout the island’s many restaurants. Yet for those who want to experience the region’s prowess at both drinking and dining in one fell swoop, there’s no better event than the annual Nantucket Wine & Food Festival.
What comes to mind when you hear the words “death valley?” Some sort of desolate hellscape, I would imagine. In fairness, in the summer it’s one of the hottest places on Earth. With temperatures routinely over 120, you’d be forgiven thinking it was a place absent of all life. The truth is more surprising. While even the ultra-dry Death Valley gets rain sometimes, the last year has been exceptionally wet. It got a year’s worth of rain just between October, 2023 and April, 2024.
The U.S. travel industry will see a full recovery in Chinese and Japanese tourism by 2026 — one year earlier than previously projected, according to the U.S. National and Travel Tourism Office’s latest annual forecast released Tuesday.
Airports aren’t exactly a place where you’re expecting to have the time of your life, but running into a staff member who clearly loves their job and interacting with the public can turn a hassle-filled travel journey into a far more palatable experience. Conversely, come across an employee who is in a sour mood can make things feel infinitely more frustrating.
A new bill in California is attempting to ban the biometric security company Clear in the state over protests it creates an unfair advantage for travelers who can afford the service.