Point Lobos State Natural Reserve
Highway 1, 3 miles south of Carmel, (831) 624-4909, parks.ca.gov/pointlobos
You have to go back to the ’80s – the 1880s, that is – to get the history of this standout park. In the decades prior, according to the Point Lobos Foundation, Whalers Cove at Point Lobos was “virtually an international business park,” a hub for whale processing and trade. Kerosene lamps were introduced in the 1880s and whale oil began to fade. The Carmel Land and Coal Company started using infrastructure at the cove to load ships with coal mined from nearby. But that industry waned as well, and the company subdivided Point Lobos into 1,000 residential lots. That’s when another stage of the area’s history took hold: preservation. Alexander Allan, Save the Redwoods League and the state of California purchased the would-be subdivision and made it into a public park. Today it’s a public park with trails, picnic areas, 750 underwater acres and abundant wildlife.