Point Lobos State Natural Reserve
Three miles south of Carmel on Highway 1, Carmel | (831) 624-4909, pointlobos.org
It’s the stunning natural beauty of Point Lobos that makes it the area’s best park. The state reserve showcases a painter’s palette of colors: dark green cypress trees coated in rust-colored algae dangle over turquoise waters smeared with ghostly strands of ocean foam. It’s a scene that has inspired poet Robinson Jeffers along with photographers Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. Sorry, there are no dogs allowed here—but plenty of cute marine mammals to admire, from a distance.